The Set Up Part Three Hunted
by Kirsty Welsh
Summary: Set directly after the Set Up eppy. As Starsky so rightly put it, "those flakes are still out there", but now those "flakes" have two new targets! COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**To all my friends out there - a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. May I take this opportunity to thank you all for your support, reviews and continued reading over the past 12 months. I love to write, but the feedback is what keeps me going! **

**A special note to Nelleke, Angie and especially my biggest critic and friend Brook You three have been with me right from the start and I value your friendship so much.**

**Ok, as Starsky would say, enough of the schmalz! You know the drill. I don't own 'em, damned if I don't make any money from 'em, but they are so cool to play with!**

**Chapter 1**

'How long was Durniak with them?'

'Maybe 24 or 48 hours.'

'Enough time then. Why didn't you carry out my orders?'

'I'm sorry Mr Da Luca Sir. I thought we had it covered. We took out Durniak.'

'Not soon enough.'

'It always takes a while Sir. We had to pick a place.'

'And when is Joseph's funeral?'

'Tomorrow. A lot of the Dons will be there, and a lot of the cops too. They're expecting trouble.'

'They always expect trouble, but we won't give them any. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow we bury one of our own; one of our family. I want this to be civilised, do you understand?'

'Of course, Mr Da Luca, but won't the cops be sniffing around some?'

'Let them. They're idiots. They have no more than one brain cell between the whole police department. I want us to show them just how pleasant we can be. We give a show of solidarity Mr Lake. We show them how we are grieving for one of our fallen dead. We attend the funeral and we stand at the graveside and we look solemn, as Joseph Durniak would have wanted. Never forget Mr Lake, that he was a powerful man with a big territory – one that is now mine for the taking.'

'I won't forget that Mr Da Luca. Who um…..who will be running Brooklyn for you, after this has all dies down?'

'Are you looking for another job Mr Lake?'

'Well I….'

'Let me see how well you handle this and then we may talk again. Do well Mr Lake. Be thorough, but that doesn't stop you being, shall we say, inventive. If all goes well we will talk again afterwards and maybe pick you out a nice big house overlooking the ocean and the bridge.'

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'Why black? I mean it's so damned depressing.' Starsky sighed deeply at his reflection in the mirror as he wrestled with the black tie adorning his neck.

'I didn't think funerals were meant to be fun occasions. Is this one different? C'm'ere, let me see that.' Hutch tutted as the brunet fiddled with the tie. He slapped Starsky's hands down and competently tied the knot, straightening and centring it before tidying the collar of the white shirt.

'Should've been done earlier for a start. He should've been buried as quick as possible. K'vod hamet….. Fuck I'm getting' to sound like Rabbi Greenberg from back home. Basically to honour the dead they should be buried as soon as possible after death, and no, it aint any different. There's no prescription for livin' as a Jew and there's nothing cast iron about dyin' as one. It's just…..'

Hutch saw a flicker of pain cross his partner's face and looked away, giving the smaller man a little privacy. 'I know' he said softly.

'He was close to the family. Closer than I would've liked. Hell, after Dad died he almost felt like family. Too close to my Mom after Dad was killed. It's like losing an uncle. Don't get me wrong. I hate everything he stood for and yet he was still a likeable guy.'

'You said he paid for your Dad's funeral.'

Starsky snickered. 'Yeah. How about that? And the bastards that took him out are still roamin' the streets.'

'Terry took him out Starsk.'

'You know what I mean. Sure, Terry pulled the trigger, but that wasn't him, was it? The flakes who brainwashed Terry are the ones who're to blame and they're still out there. It's like I said, they've got off scoti free. What gives 'em the right to fuck up innocent peoples lives huh?

Hutch shook his head. 'We've been over this Starsk. Some we win and some we lose. We chalk this one up to experience and move on.'

Starsky scowled and his eyes pierced Hutch's almost painfully. 'You really believe that crap?'

The blond shouldered into his black jacket. 'No, but it sounded good an' it's better than tilting at windmills.'

'Huh?'

'Don Quixote…..tilting at….. Starsk didn't you ever read a book in your life?'

'Yeah, Mrs Otter in first grade read Red Reader One with me. Crap story but her legs…..!'

'Philistine. C'mon, we'll be late.'

Starsky too pulled on the black jacket to his one and only suit. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, not only because of the clothes and his face fell as he followed Hutch out of the door and down the steps to his car. Somehow it seemed sacrilege to turn up to Joe's funeral in the bright red striped tomato, but the only other choice was Hutch's battered, rusted LTD, and that was even worse.

The two men sat quietly as Starsky pulled out and drove along the road, hanging a right at the end of the street so that he could follow the road out to the ramp for the freeway. The cemetery chosen for Durniak's funeral was on the south side of town. The body could have been flown back to New York, but Durniak's family had decided to have the head of the family buried in Bay City to save any further delays after the Coroner had done his thing. The fact that the Coroner was involved beggared belief. He had a whole in his chest for god's sake. He was shot and killed. A six year old could have worked that one out! And yet procedure had to be followed and Durniak's body had been cold for a week now.

The funeral was going to be a big affair and half the uniforms from the 12th precinct had been drafted in as crowd control. Where the important gangs of the country were concerned, tensions ran high, even at a funeral. With Durniak's territory up for grabs, it would be the perfect time for one of the other Dons to make a move.

Starsky stared morosely out of the wind shield. His feelings about the funeral were mixed. Durniak had been an ever present figure in the brunet's younger life. Starsky senior seemed to have had a love hate relationship with the gangland boss, but that relationship had been founded on mutual respect. What rankled more than anything was that after his Dad's death, Durniak sniffed around Rachel Starsky like a dog sniffs around a butchers shop. Was Starsky supposed to be sad at the older man's death? Should he grieve as a man should grieve for a family member, or should he, as a cop, celebrate the fact that there was one less gangster on the streets of his town? Too many thoughts; too much confusion.

'You're quiet.' Hutch's voice burst the silence and Starsky jumped.

'Thinkin'.'

'Don't bust a blood vessel partner.'

'I was just thinkin' about my Dad……and my Mom.'

'You don't think your Mom and Durniak……you know, after your Dad died?'

The brunet shrugged. 'Who knows? He was there for us. He paid for the funeral and he paid for the rent on the house for months afterwards. Why would he do that? I never wanted to ask Mom, but now, I dunno.'

'Better not to open old wounds. Let it be Starsk. Every family has skeletons in the cupboard.'

'Well that's just gross. Why would anyone want a skeleton in the cupboard?'

'It's a figure of speech buddy, like….'

'Will you look at that ass?' Starsky interrupted and whistled.

'Not exactly, but. Oh, that ass!' Hutch followed his partner's eyes and up ahead, on the side of the road, a tall leggy blond was bending over the hood of her car, staring at the engine. Her legs disappeared into the shortest and tightest hot pants imaginable and her feet were encased in espadrilles heightening the effect of limbs that seemed endless. As the Torino drove towards her, she looked up, shrugged her shoulders and put out her hand. Starsky slowed his car.

'What're ya doin' buddy? We'll be late for the funeral. Remember what happened last time we helped a damsel in distress? We got portions of our anatomy severely singed' Hutch muttered.

'With the looks of those legs and that body, somehow I think Uncle Joey would approve if we were just a little late. We can have her car back on the road, and her phone number in my pocket quick as a flash and we'll still make the cemetery. Starsky's car pulled to a stop at the side of the road by the girl. She smiled at them and mouthed "thank you" as they both got out of the Torino. Starsky scampered around the hood and almost elbowed Hutch out of the way as he held out his hand to be shaken.

'Hi, can we do anything for you?' he asked breathlessly.

The woman looked him up and down and then examined Hutch in the same way.

'I should say so' she simpered.

'I mean the car. Can we help you with the car? Are you broken down?'

The blond woman seemed to snap herself away from her lustful thoughts. 'Oh! The car. Yeah. It just kinda died. I only just managed to steer over to the side of the road. I hurt my hand on the hood catch…..and I broke a nail' She showed the cops the offending digit and sucked seductively on her fingers to clear them of the few bloody drips.

Hutch tore his eyes away from the display and nodded. 'Died huh? We can fix that can't we Starsk? Have a look under the hood while I help Miss?....'

'Martin. Debbie Martin. But my Momma always told me to stay clear of strange men.'

'They don't come much stranger than him. But you're safe enough with me.'

'Uh huh. We're cops. Here, let me give you my card. It's got my number and um…..that's my home number on the back, just in case….' Starsky handed the business card to the woman whilst Hutch pushed him out of the way.

'Starsky will fix your car won't you Starsk? While I help Miss Martin get over her shock' Hutch finished, putting a proprietary arm around the woman and slipping his own card into her hand. Debbie took it, sighed at the smudge of blood she'd put on the cards from her finger and stowed them into her pocket. Starsky scowled and took off his jacket, handing it, or rather throwing it at Hutch.

'Fine' he muttered and buried himself amongst the hunk of metal. There was a general sound of fiddling and banging, one or two curses and then a yip of achievement. The brunet appeared from behind the hood with a smear of oil across his nose and a smile on his face.

'Trust the maestro' he crowed. 'Try it now.'

The woman detached herself from Hutch's protective arms and slid into the car behind the wheel, flashing considerable hectares of flesh. She turned the ignition key and smiled as the engine roared into life. 'You're so clever! How did you do that? I mean, I'd have been stuck out here for hours if you two wonderful men hadn't come along.'

'Yeah buddy, just how did you do that?' Hutch asked suspiciously.

'There was a loose connection. I fixed it so you should be fine now. I was just wondering Debbie…' Starsky rolled down his sleeves and walked around to the side of the car. '….if you um.'

Debbie smiled up at the handsome men, slammed the door closed and edged the car forwards. 'I'm sorry guy, I need to fly. Nice meeting ya'll, especially you, cutie pie.' The woman put her foot to the floor and the car moved away quickly, spraying the duo in a fine hail of gravel and dust.

Starsky snickered. 'C'mon Cutie Pie. We got a funeral to go to.'

'But we didn't even get her number' Hutch mumbled as they walked over to the Torino. Both men paused. Starsky put his hand on the roof of his car and a look crossed his face. 'I'm just gonna check' he said quietly.

Hutch nodded and both men squatted down so that they could check beneath the car. There was nothing obvious. No bombs, nothing ticking and with a self conscious snort Starsky got in and switched on the engine, albeit cautiously. Hutch followed and as the big car pulled out onto the road again, the cops let out a sigh of relief.

'See? She was just a girl with a nice ass and legs that went all the way up' the brunet grinned as he came off the freeway and joined the smaller road without having to pause for traffic. They motored on for a while in silence.

Finally Hutch snorted. 'This job is doin' nothing for my nerves. She was just a woman for god's sake. Just a woman in a broken down car and we treated her like some kind of criminal.'

'I never saw you drape your arm around Freddy the Nose's shoulders like that.'

'You know what I mean Starsk. We start to see the worst in everyone, even beautiful girls at the side of the road. The blond sighed. 'It's not healthy.'

'The girl or the side of the road?'

The blond sighed. 'You know what I mean. Have we time for a quick coffee? I need caffeine to get my head straight.'

Starsky flicked a look at his watch. 'Sure. We've even time for pie.'

'Starsky how can you eat at a time like this? I thought you were….. here buddy. The diner is there. I thought you were gonna pull over?'

'I'm tryin'.'

'What do you mean, your trying? Starsk?'

The brunet was frantically pumping the brake pedal and yet the big car was not slowing. In fact it was picking up speed down the hill as the diner flashed by on the left hand side.

'Starsky?'

'Brakes…..I don't have any' the brunet mumbled through gritted teeth.

'Mind the bend Starsk.'

'I've seen it.'

'Side road?'

'Taking it.'

'Are we slowing?'

'Uh uh.'

'Shit.'

Starsky did not reply. He was too busy wrestling with the Torino as is careered on down the hill. Houses flashed by and twice the brunet swerved to avoid parked cars. The road, mercifully, was quiet and sparsely residential. Down at the bottom of the hill there was a stand of trees and as the last of the houses whizzed past, Starsky realised that he had no other way to stop than to aim for something solid.

'Hutch, when I tell ya, I want you to jump, ok?' he shouted over the whine of the engine

'Not ok buddy. What're you gonna do?'

'Crash?'

'Over my dead body.'

'It's gonna be over both our dead bodies of you don't' jump Blondie. Go, now!'

'I'm not leaving…..Starsky….tree. STARSKYYYYYYY.'

The huge tree loomed into view. There was no escaping it; no way around it. Starsky continued pumping the brake pedal uselessly right up to the second when the Torino hit the tree. There was the sound of bark ripping from the trunk, the agonised squeal of metal against some thing almost as hard and then the engine died and there was silence,

In the quiet that followed the screaming of metal and wood, the wheels continued to turn on the upended car as though it were still on its way to Durniak's funeral.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The crash site was far enough away from the residential area that no-one could have observed it. The hour of the day – around 10am also meant that most of the neighbourhood was either at work, or doing small, comforting, domestic things, like walking the dog or taking the kiddies to the park. There was no rush of help to the scene and no crowd to fuss over the two bodies. As the wheels on the bent and battered Torino stopped spinning and the metal settled back to earth, only one other car stopped and two dark suited men got out. They didn't rush as onlookers will sometimes rush to aid a crash victim. Instead, both the suits donned black leather gloves, checked the safeties on their Browning pistols and stuffed them into the front waistbands of their pants. Then and only then did they saunter over to the red and white car and its two passengers.

The two men nodded competently at each other and bent down without opening the Torino's doors to peer inside the wreckage. The car lay on its roof, the underside offered up to the sky like a sacrificial lamb. Inside there was a mess of limbs and bodies and it took a moment to figure out which arm or leg belonged to which cop. As the taller of the two suits reached into the interior of the car, Hutch managed to turn his head. Blood ran from a cut on the side of his face and from a split lip and his crystal blue eyes were dazed and confused.

'Help?' the blond managed to croak.

'Sure thing pal' the suit closest to him grinned. The man reached in through the smashed window, kneeling carefully to avoid the broken glass. He managed to take a hold of Hutch by his shoulders and pulled him free of the car just as the second man dragged Starsky's now unconscious form out. They lay the cops side by side on the rough ground and looked down at them.

Hutch tried to sit up, groaning at some internal pain. His breath left him in a rush and he sagged back against the rocky ground, turning his head towards his partner.

'Starsk?' he rasped through smashed lips. There was no answer from the brunet. Starsky's face was pale where the skin showed through the slick film of blood. The steering wheel seemed to have caught the smaller cop across the bridge of his nose and a large gash spilled bright red blood down over the centre of his face. Starsky's eyes were closed and he seemed to have great difficulty breathing, the breath rasping through his throat. The white shirt beneath his black jacket showed a bright bloom of blood and it was obvious to even the untrained eye that the same wheel that had caused the head wound had also caused a severe chest wound. Hutch tried to inch closer to his partner to check him over, oblivious to his own injuries. He squinted up at the two suits.

'Help him?' Pale blue eyes looked beseechingly at their rescuers.

The suits ignored him and instead conversed amongst themselves.

'Are they bad enough Mr Hill?'

'The curly one seems to be Mr Jones.'

'The pretty one could do with some attention. Mr L won't like it if he has work to do when we get them back.'

'What do you suggest?'

'We never like to do a sloppy job do we Mr Jones?'

Mr Jones smirked. 'We're always thorough Mr Hill.'

Almost carefully, Hill stepped forwards until he towered over the body of David Starsky. The brunet lay where they'd left him like a broken doll waiting to be given some attention. The "doll" didn't need to wait too long as with a loving look Mr Hill looked down at the body, pulled back his foot and kicked Starsky full force in the side. The brunet's body rolled sideways and yet there was no other response from the curly haired cop save for an agonised bubbling intake of breath. Jones leaned down over the inert form and reached inside Starsky's jacket. He removed the Smith and Wesson, stuffed it into his pocket and then stepped over the body, ignoring the brunet now that the body had been dealt with.

Besides his partner, Hutch watched, sickened by what he saw and despite being hurt himself, he tried to force himself to his feet, intent on stopping any more brutality. Jones stepped forwards and placed a boot in the centre of the blond's chest, forcing Hutch back down.

'Stay put' the suit growled.

'Fuck it' the blond managed to spit, still struggling.

Mr Jones grinned. 'Are you going to stop me?'

'Yeah.'

A slow chuckle raised the hairs on Hutch's neck. 'I don't think so. Your friend there is the lucky one.'

'Huh?'

'You see, our boss needed you both pretty badly broken. Curly over there fits the bill, but you? You're just too damned healthy.'

'Who the hell are you?'

'That's none of your concern.'

Hutch's eyes blazed with anger, but at the back, lurking like some feral beast, there was also just a little fear. Had he been whole, had he not just gotten himself hauled from a car wreck, the blond might have stood some sort of chance of fighting. Had his head not ached viciously and had his body not felt like he'd spent the last thirty minutes beneath a pile driver, Hutch felt he could have taken both men. With his resistance low there seemed to be no way that he could protect both Starsky and himself. But he'd die trying.

The kick his partner had received had been a telling blow. Fortunately Starsky had been unconscious. What had the suit meant – that he was too healthy?

_Not good Hutch, not good._

There were two ways the blond could go – easy or hard. He'd just survived a car crash and now he was convinced that the Torino's brake lines had been cut. How much harder could he go?

_In for a penny…._

'Ya gonna get blood on your pretty, shiny shoes?' Hutch muttered.

Jones smiled wolfishly. 'You bet' he smirked. 'Mr Hill, if you would?'

Hill stepped forwards, all friendly and helpful. 'Of course Mr Jones. Anything to help.' The suit bent down and took a hold of Hutch's arm, forcing the limb out and away from the blonds body. Hutch struggled and Hill knelt on his chest, almost stopping the cop from breathing in order to keep struggles to the minimum. He took no notice of the blond, treating him almost like a side of beef. Hill stretched Hutch's right arm out and placed a small rock beneath the arm, just above the blond's elbow. Hutch struggled to dislodge the man, receiving a vicious kick from Jones that had the breath whistling through his teeth. Jones walked around to the other side of Hutch's body and positioned himself by Hills side. He looked down into burning crystal eyes.

'Say ouch' he smiled as he brought his booted foot down on Hutch's arm, just below the elbow, using the rock beneath it as a kind of fulcrum. The blond screamed as the arm gave across the rock. His elbow simply slid apart, the arm broken and at an odd angle where the elbow had dislocated. Hutch writhed on the ground as the two men towered above him. He watched them through semi closed eyes as together the two suits set about kicking him into unconsciousness. Twice he tried to roll away. Twice they laughed and followed his agonised movements until all the blond could do was curl himself into a ball, reach for his partner, and allow the darkness to take him down the long lonely ride to oblivion.

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The cemetery on the south side of the city was the largest Bay City had to offer. It was also the most prestigious and it was here that the city's rich and famous came to be buried. Headstones stood in serried ranks along fresh white gravel walkways. Across a large expanse of green lawn the larger headstones looked on. Angels with their wings held out in protection, marble archways, likenesses of the dead at their feet; the stones creations looked down silently from their stony plinths.

In another part of the cemetery, mausoleums lined wider roads. Each small stone crypt held the family name above the door. Each had angels or cherubs scrambling across their pure white marble or creamy limestone, and each spoke of money with a capital M. This part of the cemetery was also cut into neat sections. Catholic; Episcopalian; Jewish. Each had their own "village" of crypts and each their own style.

It was in this part of the cemetery that the huge gathering now stood.

Joseph Durniak's funeral was the largest that had ever been seen in Bay City, and arguably the most important. Whilst the host of more than 200 mourners stood like a black tide around one of the largest, freshest mausoleums, a uniformed police cordon stretched around them at a respectful distance. Further out still, but with just as good a view of the proceedings, police snipers stood guard. Was Bay City expecting trouble? Too right they were. With gangland bosses flying in from all quarters of the States, and with some coming from further afield, the BCPD were taking no chances at all.

The funeral cortege made its solemn way down though the cemetery. In front of the coffin on its black, horse drawn catafalque three of the most powerful Dons walked slowly, leading their comrades body on its final journey. The neat roadway was lined with black coated figures. This was not a Jewish funeral; this was a gangland funeral, with all the trappings.

The body came to rest in front of the chosen, brand new and hastily erected mausoleum. The horses stopped, their breath pluming in the cool air and the black feathers that adorned their heads tossing nervously. There was an air of tension in the crowd and the animals had picked up on it. They danced nervously as their owner tried to quiet them. Joe Durniak's body was lifted in its simple ebony coffin by eight of the Dons and they proceeded to walk slowly to the door of Durniak's last resting place.

At the back of the crowd closing in around the mausoleums door, a tiny woman and a much taller, younger man stood quietly. The man was around 6' tall, with a mop of unruly, curly, mahogany coloured hair. Sparkling blue eyes danced around the crowd nervously and he put an arm around the tiny woman's shoulders.

The woman herself stood no more than 4' 11". She too had tightly curled brown, almost black hair, covered for the moment in a black headscarf. She leaned into the man's side and looked up, tears in her eyes and a white handkerchief in her hand. Rachel Starsky laid her head on her son Nicky's chest and sighed.

'Where is he? Davey should be here by now. It's not like him to miss Joe's funeral.'

Nicky, Starsky's younger brother by four years shook his head. 'Police business, he's probably out booking jaywalkers as we speak Mah.'

Rachel Starsky hit her younger son in the chest. The blow was not hard, but it was meant as a warning.

'Don't speak of Davey like that. He would be here if he could.'

'Mah, he hated Uncle Joey. He always blamed him for Dad's death, or at least he didn't like that Joe helped us when Dad had died.'

Rachel had the grace to blush. 'Joe was good to us. It's the least we could do to be here.'

'Just how good was he Mah?' Nicky asked. This time Rachel slapped his face.

'Be careful son. I won't have ill spoken of the dead.'

Nicky scowled but wisely kept his mouth shut. He looked expectantly up the now empty road, expecting to see his brother's car speeding down at any minute. The road remained obstinately empty. He turned his attention back to the last part of the funeral – the interment. The rabbi spoke some words, the coffin was carried reverently inside and then the Dons emerged, the door was locked and the crowd began to break up.

Rachel shook her head. 'Something is wrong. Davey would have been here. I can feel something is wrong.'

'You're imagining things Mah. Listen. I'll take us back to his house. You know, kinda surprise him huh? Would you like that?'

The small woman smiled up. 'You're a good boy Nicky…..sometimes. Come on, lets go before we get caught up in the crowd. I don't like to be a part of these….these men.'

The two made their way back to Nicky's hire car. They'd come down at Durniak's family's request to pay their last respects and they had a ticket back to New York for the following day – all paid for by "Uncle Joey", or at least his estate. Nicky drove quickly out of the cemetery, following the signs back to the freeway. Rachel was quiet in the car. She couldn't stop the nagging feeling deep in her chest that something was wrong. However much her eldest son disliked Durniak, he would never have disobeyed her wishes for him to join her at the cemetery.

When Nicky finally pulled to a stop outside the apartment at Ridgeway, Rachel got out, used her spare key and opened the door. The apartment was tidy as ever, clothes folded from the washer, pots draining on the board, but no other signs of life.

Telling herself she was worrying unnecessarily, Rachel made tea and sat down to wait. Two hours later though, with the fingers of the clock showing afternoon, her patience finally wore away. With a shaky hand, she dialled a number on the phone and waited until a deep voice answered.

'Dobey.'

'Captain Dobey, its Rachel Starsky. Is my son there?'

'No, he was at Durniak's funeral this morning with Hutch. They didn't report back so I kinda assumed they'd taken the rest of the day off.

The small woman's heart plummeted. 'Then I think we may have a problem' she said quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

You are about to wake when you dream that you are dreaming.

David Starsky was dreaming. He knew he was, and he was enjoying himself. He was dreaming of a beautiful girl. She was small, no more than 5'2". She had the deepest, most intense brown eyes he'd ever seen and glossy, long brown hair that hung in a curtain to her waist. He took a hold of a handful of that hair and wrapped it around his fist, feeling the silky strands slip between his fingers and he sighed into her neck, nuzzling at the perfumed skin. They had been making out for hours. He knew her body and she knew his as thought they fit together like a hand in a glove. Right now, they stood mere inches apart as Starsky felt the electricity dance between them. The woman with no name leaned into him, her hands raking small furrows down the olive tanned skin of his back as she breathed against the crook of his neck. Her aura….whatever she would call it tickled along his overheated flesh so that he felt as though he were stood inside a tropical breeze. The woman's hands slid from the cop's spine around to the front and he gasped as once again she took a hold of the centre of his body. Her hands were warm, sensuous; as though she'd encircled him in silk and satin and he let his head fall back as a sigh escaped his parted lips. Quickly she dotted a small kiss on his outstretched neck above the pulse throbbing there and his indigo blue eyes fluttered. His hands reached for the woman and brought her body close to him so that he could feel the heat of her. He smoothed his hands down her slim frame, cupping each breast in his hands. He bent and took one rosebud nipple between his teeth, gently worrying the nub of hardened flesh. The woman mewed her approval and her hands worked harder at the centre of his body until he felt the world throbbing in that one engorged organ. The planet existed only to give them pleasure. They knew each other and they wanted each other. Nothing else mattered. Slowly and gently, never taking his lips from her nipple, Starsky sank to the ground, bringing the woman with him and when she lay beneath him, looking up at him with trusting brown eyes, he positioned himself between her legs.

Starsky smiled down at her feeling a rush of warmth. 'I love you' he whispered into the woman's ear as he bent to his task, feeling his tip pushing at her body insistently.

'Well hello to you too' a female voice with an amused edge replied.

The vision of love making disappeared. Starsky's eyelids felt heavy, as though he hadn't used them in a long time. In fact his whole body felt almost too heavy to move; too useless, as though he'd somehow forgotten how to instruct his muscles. He tried to flex his arm and it hurt like hell. Widening his eyes further he blinked at the light. Love making wasn't supposed to feel like this. It was supposed to be warm and erotic and comfortable. Instead the brunet felt nothing but pain, nausea and a sense of fear.

Indigo eyes opened wider, focused slowly and looked up into the woman's face.

No, not THE woman, merely A woman. This female had green eyes rather than brown and although she was relatively pretty to look at, she was by no means the brunette beauty of his dreams and she was taking something from his head, his ears somehow feeling decidedly cold as though they had been covered.

Confused, Starsky tried once again to form words, alarmed at the dryness and cracks on his lips and the rasping quality of his voice. What the hell was going on?

'Hey' he whispered weakly.

'Hey yourself. We thought you'd never wake up. It's good to finally see those beautiful blue eyes. Welcome back.' The nurse, in her pale pink tunic and blue pants clucked over her patient, straightening his covers and finally placing a thermometer under the brunet's tongue. Starsky felt the pressure of a blood pressure cuff inflate around his right arm. It hurt. Cuffs like that shouldn't hurt, but then again, right at that moment even breathing seemed to hurt some. He waited impatiently until the glass was slid out from between his teeth and then he licked his dried lips and tried again.

'Where am I?' he asked his voice husky and weak.

The nurse looked down at her patient. 'You're in the hospital. You've had quite a time of it. We thought we were going to lose you a couple of times, but I have to say you're one hell of a fighter.'

'Don't remember……how?'

The woman's face fell and she busied herself recording figures onto a chart. 'You need to rest honey. You've been through a lost and you must be so tired. I'll let your doctor know that you're awake. He can fill you in on what's been happening.'

'No…..don't go.' The fear of being alone filled the cop with a cold dread. Starsky tried to reach up to stop the nurse from leaving. For some stupid reason he didn't want to be left alone. It was as though he were teetering on the edge of a void and he didn't want to look down into the bottomless pit. He didn't want to be alone. It scared him, and the fact that it scared him made him all the more fearful. What was it that had him so spooked? The curly haired man's arm that tried to reach for the nurse decided not to obey. It remained obstinately at the brunet's side, heavy and unresponsive and Starsky's heart rate shot up in panic.

'Can't move…..c..can't move. Why?'

The nurse turned and hurried to the head of his bed and placed a soothing hand on Starsky's forehead. 'Ssh. It's ok. You've been unconscious a long time. It's bound to take time for you to start being able to move again. Try to keep calm and I'll go get the doctor.'

'Noo. Don't…..tell me. Where am I?'

'You're in the hospital.'

The brunet's eyebrows knitted together in concentration. The past was a dark blur and he needed answers. 'How long?'

The nurse looked away. 'It's too early for all this. You really should let me go and get the doctor. He can explain everything better than I can. I won't be gone more than a minute. Just let me go and get him huh?' the woman smiled down, her best professional "let's soothe the hysterical man" smile.

Starsky tried again. 'How long?'

'A little over a week since you were brought in. Now let me go get the doctor honey, ok?' She turned her back and was gone leaving Starsky alone with his thoughts and the feeling of fear still sitting like an iceberg in the pit of his stomach.

The brunet tried to raise himself into a sitting position but that was too much for him. He managed to raise his left hand to his face and saw that the forearm was stuck with an IV needle connected to a bottle of clear, colourless liquid hanging from a stand at the head of the bed. Exploring further, the other arm had a matching accessory and the brunet cursed softly. From experience he knew one drip meant trouble. Two drips meant he was well and truly fucked. Shit! The last time he'd been so banged up was…. was.

When?

When had he been so damaged? How did he know about hospitals and drips and….?

Who the hell was he? And what was going on?

The man in the bed started to struggle. Starsky had no recollection of how he'd gotten into the hospital. He couldn't remember his past, or what had happened, or more terrifyingly, who he was. Everything hurt him. As he looked down his body he saw white bandages surrounding his chest. A drain stuck out from between the white folds, attached to something dangling from the bed. The clear plastic drain showed blood. Raising his left hand to brush against his chest, the brunet felt the prickly spikes of stitches peeping out from the top of the bandages and as he looked further he could see that his arms and hands were mottled blue, purple and a sickly green from bruises.

Panic seized him and shook him. He had no memories. He had nothing in his head other than panic and fear and…..loneliness. A sob escaped his throat and Starsky closed his eyes, shutting out the outside world in the hope that some memory would resurface. His head hurt and he felt sick. The pains in his body seemed to have redoubled and all he wanted was a familiar face to come and tell him that everything was ok.

The door to his small, white painted hospital room opened and a man in a white coat appeared. He walked to the bed and looked down at his sweating patient with a smile. It was not the comforting presence Starsky had wished for, but at least now he may get some answers. The doctor was talking to him and the brunet concentrated on the words.

'I'm Doctor Isaac. I've been looking after you since you were admitted. You must have a lot of questions. It's really too early for this conversation, but I'll give you the basics and then you should try to rest.

Starsky looked up at the man. He seemed genuine enough. Isaac was tall, but not overly so. He had an olive toned skin which spoke of a Middle Eastern ancestry and deep, pure brown eyes that looked earnestly down at his patient.

'I don't remember anything' Starsky rasped, the edge of fear showing in his eyes.

'It's not surprising considering the state you were in when you were admitted into the hospital. Weaker men than you would not have survived, but I take my hat off to you. You are a true fighter.'

'Terrific, I'm a fighter.'

'Tell me what you remember' Isaac said gently.

The man in the bed closed his eyes. Good question. What did he remember? Starsky concentrated on trying to access memories that seemed to have been erased totally from his head. Where there should have been peoples faces, snatches of conversations, remembered jokes there was nothing. A deep, dark pit seemed to have formed inside his head replacing anything that had once been there. What about his Mom? Every guy has to have had a Mom. Concentrate on that for a minute and see what floats up.

Nothing.

Starsky clawed at the sheet covering his body and a trickle of sweat beaded on his forehead and wound its way down the side of his face. 'There's nuthin there Doc. I don't remember nuthin……who am I?'

Isaac made soothing shushing noises and brought up a chair to sit by the side of the bed. He leaned forwards and took a hold of his patient's hand, sighing deeply. 'You must try to calm yourself. It won't do any good to get upset. I'll tell you what I know and then I want you to rest. Deal?'

Starsky nodded, focusing his attention on the man's words so that he didn't have to think about the sickening void in his head. 'Deal.'

'You were brought into the hospital eight days ago in a very damaged state. It seems you were in a car crash. You had a nasty concussion, five broken ribs, a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen. You also had a broken ankle. All your injuries are healing nicely although you still have a long way to go and you need to be patient. We have you on antibiotic drips and now that you are awake, the nurse will help you to sit up a little. But you mustn't overdo things. Rest is the ticket. Rest and sleep.'

Starsky rolled his head on the pillow, his eyes closed as though in pain. 'I don't remember. I don't remember a damned thing. Nuthin. I was in a car crash? Was there anyone else involved? Where was the crash? Was I drivin'?'

Isaac shook his head. 'You've had a shock. All these details can wait until you're stronger.'

'No Doc. I need to know. Just an outline, I don't need details. Just gimme sumthin to work on huh?'

'Fine. An outline, but no more. And then rest or I'll have the nurse sedate you. You were brought in alone. Your car was found on its roof on a small back road by the coast. It seems you had been forced off of the road and left for dead. The men that picked you up and brought you here said that another car was seen driving away fast from the crash site. They managed to get the cars number. Is that enough for you for now?'

The brunet stared at the white tiled ceiling trying to make sense of what he'd heard. Nothing rang bells with him. The doctor might just have well told him he was the sheik of Arabia, but there was one last thing he needed to know.

'I don't remember' Starsky rasped. 'Do you know my name? Who I am?'

'We don't know what you do, although you had several guns in the car so I think we can safely say you weren't a florist. Other than that, your driving licence says you come from Jacksonville, Florida and your name is Ethan Quade.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

'How are our visitors Mr Lake?'

'On track Mr Da Luca. The dark haired one woke up this morning for the first time.'

'And?'

'He doesn't remember a thing. The drug that Doc Isaac gave him in his drip seems to be working on that score, he's had the headphones on almost continuously and he's healing well. He should be ready in maybe a month.'

'What of the other one Mr Lake? He was slightly more um, problematic wasn't he?'

'He's more resistant to the drug, yes. The doctor's had to work harder on him, but they're waking him up again today and if he still remembers then they're going to take him down to the treatment room.'

'It seems a lot of trouble to go to Mr Lake. Are you sure you don't just want to kill them now and have done with it?'

'You said I could be inventive. Creative I think is the term you used. This way we can get rid of the two cops and we can give our men some training. We have a double whammy and we can enjoy the hunt. It seems a convenient way of doing things.'

The other man chuckled. 'I can always rely on you to make good a ticklish situation Mr Lake. Well done. That big house in New York is looking more of a possibility by the minute.'

Mr Lake shrugged his shoulders. 'Just doing my job Mr Da Luca Sir. The New York job would be the icing on the cake. For now I want to make sure the blond one is behaving himself. Would you excuse me?'

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The small white painted room was quiet, only the blip, blip from the monitor by the bed making a noise. It had been this way on and off for almost eight days now. Each time Ken Hutchinson awoke, he looked around and asked for Starsky, his partner.

It was inconvenient.

This time, Dr Isaac sat by the side of the bed waiting as the nurse closed off the fluid in the drip feed flowing into the blond's left arm. The doctor whiled away his time taking pulse, blood pressure and respiration readings and recording them on a chart which he rose and hung on the end of the metal framed bed. He looked back at his patient.

When Hutch had been brought into the facility he'd been almost as much of a mess as his friend had been. The cop's arm dangled uselessly from the gurney, the elbow ruptured and blue. Other black and blue bruises marched across the blond's face, neck, chest, arms and legs. It had taken an hour of surgery to piece back the elbow that Hill and his friend had broken. It took another hour or so to repair damage to Hutch's leg and chest. After that, Isaac kept his patient comatose for a few days, giving his drug time to work on the blond's memories. Twice now the patient had been allowed to wake. Twice Hutch had looked around him and asked for Starsky. Today, Isaac hoped it would be third time lucky.

The doctor bent over his patient and watched as Hutch's eyelids fluttered and then cracked open to reveal crescents of crystal blue.

'Can you hear me?' Isaac asked.

Hutch's eyebrows V'd in concentration and he closed his eyes again feeling disorientated and dizzy.

'Where am I?' the blond asked weakly.

'You're in the hospital. Do you remember the accident?'

Hutch rolled his head on the pillow. 'Accident? What accident? Don't remember….'

'Your memories will return' Isaac said soothingly. 'Just lie back and relax. You've been through a helluva time.'

'Where's Starsky?' Hutch tried to raise his head from the pillow and look around. He had dim pictures flowing through his head of a curly head slick with blood lying opposite him on a dusty, rough road. His partner seemed unconscious and his white shirt had been covered in blood. It seemed odd to the blond that he should remember a white shirt. Starsky almost never wore white. He was a jeans and tee shirt kinda guy.

'Starsk?'

Isaac shook his head. 'No one came in with you. You were on your own. Who or what is Starsky?' The doctor held his breath. They'd been down this road before and it had so far ended in Hutch becoming almost violent in his attempts to find his friend.

The flaxen haired cop shook his head carefully. 'No. I remember. Not an accident, but I remember Starsky was with me. I need to find him. He was hurt. He needed me.' Hutch started to try to get out of the bed, fighting with the drip feed attached to the back of his hand. The other hand – the one encased in a white plaster cast got in his way and the pains in his chest and back took away his breath, making him sag back against the pillows in frustration. He looked pleadingly at the doctor.

'Help me?' he whispered.

'You have to help yourself son. Only you can deal with these "memories" although there is one thing I could try.'

'Will it help me find Starsky?'

Isaac shook his head gently. 'There is no Starsky. Your mind seems to have fixated on an imaginary person and until we can erase that thought, you're not going to be able to progress. Will you let me help you?'

The blond shivered, a feeling of dread running down his spine like ice water. Starsky was a fiction? It seemed almost too preposterous to believe, and yet the doctor seemed convinced that he was imaginary.

'I dunno. I dunno anything. I don't even….I don't even know who I am any more.'

Isaac smiled. 'Believe it or not, that's a good sign. Who do you think you are? Are there any names that seem like you?'

Once again Hutch shook his head. 'There's nothing there Doc. Just that one name. Starsky. I don't even know my own name. Oh my God, I don't even know who I am! Who am I? Who the fuck am I?' Hutch's voice rose so that it sounded cracked and harsh. The blond started to sweat as he tried to pierce the blackness in head. Starsky. There was a man called Starsky and they were close. Very close. He couldn't have been a figment of Hutch's imagination. He could almost smell sandalwood soap and Pierre Cardin aftershave. He could see chocolate coloured curls and he could hear a voice. It called to him and yet it didn't use his name. Was he going crazy? Did he need help, or did he just need to get himself out of there?

Fear and anger mingled inside the blond's head. He was disorientated although he thought he'd seen the doctor before, but not having a name freaked him out. It was as though he didn't exist because his name didn't exist. How was it he could remember the curly haired man and yet he couldn't remember his own name? The fear spilled over into blind panic. How could a name mean so much? How could one name be the entire identity of a man? So without a name he was a nobody? Come on!

'Who am I? Tell me who I am' he yelled.

Isaac looked disappointed. He laid a hand on Hutch's shoulder but the cop shook him off and flinched away, fear widening the crystal blue eyes and making the big blond shake. The doctor had been full of hope that this time his memory serum might have worked but once again he seemed to have underestimated Hutch's resolve and strength of mind.

'Does it matter so much to you son?'

Crystal blue eyes showing just a hint of white stared at him, mute for a moment. Hutch nodded his head. Yes, it did matter. An identity might just ground him in the here and now. It might just give him a foothold with which to piece together his past. 'Yeah' he said quietly.

'That's fine son. We can help there. We have a name. From the ID papers in your wallet and the photo there, you are Ray Hunt, from Seattle.'

'Ray? Ray Hunt?' Hutch paused a moment letting the name roll around his lips. There was nothing familiar about it. The doctor could just have well have told him he was Santa Claus and yet it was a name. Something he could hold on to. 'And Starsky?'

Isaac sighed dramatically. 'I don't know how to convince you that there is no Starsky. Let me help you. I'll cut you a deal. You let me try our treatment out on you and I'll have someone try to find out more about your background. How does that sound?'

Hutch nodded. He felt defeated somehow, as though the doctor had won a battle Hutch didn't know he was fighting. 'What kind of treatment? And what's wrong with me?'

'You had a bad concussion when you came to us. Your left elbow was broken and we had to piece it back together. You should regain full use of it with time and exercise. You also had a broken rib and multiple bruises and contusions. Typical of a car crash.'

'I don't remember a car crash. Are you sure?'

Isaac smiled. 'I'll have the orderlies take you down to the treatment room shortly. I can't promise, but I think the treatment will make you feel a whole lot better. In the mean time, rest.'

The doctor got up and left leaving Hutch on the bed, eyes closed and dispirited. The blond felt alone; empty. As though someone had taken the stopper out of the bottle of his life and thrown the contents away. There was nothing to think about other than blackness. How many times must a person use their memories during a day? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? It was done without thinking, the memories were merely there. Without them, Hutch was adrift on a sea of loneliness and he hated every moment. The one thing he knew above all – the absence of "Starsky" whoever he was, made him feel more alone than anything else.

Outside the hospital room Arlo Da Luca stood waiting with Mr Lake. 'Well?' the gang boss asked as Isaac closed the door carefully behind him. The doctor shook his head.

'I've never known anyone fight the drug like he is. He's still asking for his partner. I fed him the identity you gave me – Ray Hunt from Seattle – but he didn't seem to buy it. He's still asking for Starsky.'

'So your next step is….?'

'We'll take him for a treatment. Not even Terry could withstand that. By this evening he'll be eating out of our hands and then you will just need to wait until the both of them are fit.'

Da Luca smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes. 'See to it that it does work Doctor. You know how I hate to waste my time.'

Isaac nodded, a wave of trepidation showing on his face. 'It'll work Mr da Luca Sir. It'll work.'

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The two orderlies came for Hutch about a half an hour later. The blond had managed to doze after Isaac had gone. In truth, his body hurt almost as much as his mind did. His elbow throbbed mercilessly and it hurt to breath through the white strapping across his chest. Being awake seemed such a difficult exercise that even the small conversation with the doctor had taken it out of the blond and he jumped as the orderlies opened the door to his room and pushed in a gurney.

'Mr Hunt? We've come to take you to the treatment room. We just need to get you onto the gurney. Relax and let us do the work huh?' The orderly smiled cheerily at Hutch and the blond stared back, not feeling in the least like smiling. Instead he nodded his consent and the two men whisked back the sheet to reveal white scrub pants. Hutch was thankful for small mercies. He knew his chest was bare save for the bandages, but he'd not checked further south.

With one man at his head and another taking his feet, Hutch was lifted gently onto the gurney, but his eyes widened and he started to protest as wide leather straps were buckled across his chest and legs leaving his arms trapped and his body immobile.

'No, d d don't do that' he gasped, trying to struggle free of the restraints.

'Hey man, cool it buddy. We're only following regs. You gotta be strapped in so as we don't' have no accidents. Wouldn't want ya hurtin' yourself if ya fell off.'

Hutch tried to see the sense of the straps. He was sure he'd seem them before on other gurneys – which got him to thinking. Had he been in a lot of hospitals before? Again the clear picture of a curly head on a pillow, eyes closed and a tube exiting the mouth connected to a respirator.

Starsky.

Who the hell was Starsky and why did he haunt Hutch's dreams? The blond needed answers if only to preserve his sanity and with a deep sigh, Hutch lay back on the gurney and tried to ignore the restraints as the orderlies wheeled him down a succession of white corridors.

Eventually, they paused by a door on the left and Orderly #1 opened it to reveal a small white room, empty but for a stand with what looked like a projector and a set of headphones. Dr Isaac leaned calmly against the wall as the gurney was positioned in the middle of the room opposite the blank wall.

Hutch expected the restraints to be taken off when they eventually stopped their excursion through the hospital. The orderlies, however, simply positioned the gurney, applied the brakes and stood back as Isaac came forwards with a hypodermic needle in his hand.

Hutch's heart rate climbed through the roof. He had one distinct memory of being tied to a chair. His face was hurt and bruised and there were unseen hands slapping and punching him, hurting him more and more. A blindfold covered his eyes making the punishment seem twice as bad and then suddenly it stopped and a man's voice spoke to him.

'Where is she?'

Hutch remembered refusing to talk; the "she" seemed very important to him and then he heard the two words that lanced through his memory like a bolt of lightning to his heart.

'Juice him.'

The blond remembered a bruising vice-like grip on his upper arm and someone tearing the sleeve of his shirt. He hated needles. Needles represented fear, heat, pain, sweat, loneliness and fear. Needles blew lives apart and meant….Starsky? And then, above the memory like a string of salvation Hutch remembered strong arms wrapped around his shivering shaking body and a voice, quiet and reassuring.

_I got ya, you big lug. I got ya._

Isaac's voice penetrated Hutch's fevered memory. 'Hold him still, he's going to hurt himself.'

Other strong hands took a hold of him and the blond continued to fight against them, his body writhing and bucking against the restraints and then there were hands on his head, holding it down to the gurney and another restraint passed across his forehead, keeping him immobile. The blond's eyes stared wildly upwards as Isaac's concerned face came into view.

'Listen to me Ray. Listen to my voice. I'm not going to hurt you. We just need to give you some sedative so that the treatment will work. It won't hurt. I'll be done in a second.'

There was a bee sting prick on his upper arm and Hutch froze, expecting the first blissful rush of the heroin. None came. Instead he started to feel calmer, sleepier and his mouth dried. He didn't flinch as the earphones were placed on his head. He didn't even try to look away as the projector aimed at the white ceiling above him and started to play images of the dark haired man of his memories.

'This is Ethan Quade……'

The tape continued to play and Hutch continued to watch.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Morning light flooded in through the wooden blinds of the small office, the sounds of traffic from the street below muted through the closed window. The desk lay littered with files, some open, some cast carelessly away. Several dirty coffee mugs stacked at one end of the large desk, testament to the fact that the owner of the workplace had not left it for some time. Caffeine helps keep a sleepy Captain awake, but does nothing for his temper. Sometimes even caffeine cannot keep a man from sleep, especially after he's been awake for 36 hours solid.

Something awoke Dobey from his nap, some noise outside in the squad room and carefully he eased his head from its resting place on the crook of his arm. The skin felt creased and stiff and as he lifted his head a slip of paper stuck to the side of his cheek annoyingly. The big teddy bear of a black man batted the paper away angrily, scrubbed his hands down the sides of his face and then stretched, popping the tightest of the buttons on his white shirt to show an expanse of brown belly.

There was another knock on the door. So that's what had awoken him from a dream of cherry cream pies, hot dogs and cold, cold beer. Clearing his voice Dobey put on his best growl.

'What?'

The door opened and a young recruit to the department stuck his head around the door. 'Sorry to bother your Cap'n, but your visitors are here to see you.'

Dobey grunted. He'd been putting off this moment since the initial report had come in three days ago. Thing was, he could only cover up two cops disappearance, and the dead body for so long. Damn! What he wouldn't give for a shower, a change of clothing and maybe a nice long vacation on one of the remoter Caribbean islands – or maybe just let the earth open up and swallow him for a decade or two.

The Captain sat straighter in his chair. Wouldn't do to see the visitors looking like he'd fallen off of the back of a removal truck. He straightened his tie, got a paper cup of water from the machine in the corner of his office and then sat down again, braced for the inevitable.

'Ok Jackson. Show them in.'

There was a moment for the Captain to get himself together and then through the door a small, bird-thin woman and a tall, achingly familiar looking young man came. Mrs Rachel Starsky stepped forwards and shook Dobey's hand. Nick Starsky stood back from the desk and nodded a curt greeting. His associations with the police in New York meant he didn't want to become overly familiar with his elder brother's boss.

'Mrs Starsky….Nick. Good to see you again. Please, take a seat.'

Rachel sat down on the hard chair by the desk. Nicky took the bucket chair that Starsky and Hutch usually shared. Somehow it looked so right for the curly haired man to be there, and at the same time, so wrong. Dobey dragged his attention back to the woman who was looking at him expectantly.

'Can I get you a coffee? A tea maybe?' he asked.

Rachel regarded him with eyes as blue and as piercing as her sons. 'Captain, if I didn't know you better, I'd think that you were stalling. I asked to see you yesterday and one of your men told me you were busy trying to find my son and his partner. I'm here today to find out how you're getting along.'

'He don't know shit Mah. It's written all over his face.' Nicky leaned forwards and stared at Dobey almost aggressively.

The small woman turned in her seat and smacked her youngest on his knee. It was the type of blow that Nick would have ignored, designed to insult rather than hurt. 'Mind your language! Captain Dobey will tell us what he can in his own time.' She turned back to the black man. 'Won't you Captain?'

Dobey wriggled uncomfortably in his seat. Weeping widows he could handle; he could deal with the addicts, the murderers, the rapists in a heartbeat, but having to explain what was going on to this pint sized powerhouse of a woman left him quivering, not only because she seemed to have the ability to reduce him to a wreck with one look, but also because he could hardly believe what he was about to tell her himself. The black man picked up a pencil and twiddled it nervously in his fingers.

'Mrs Starsky we have no idea where your son or his partner are.' Even to Dobey the words seemed to come out in a rush and he steadied himself, forcing himself to take a deep breath.

Rachel cocked her head on one side as her eldest child often did. 'Are you telling me that Davey is officially missing?'

'Missing, yeah. He left to go to Joe Durniak's funeral over a week ago and we haven't heard from either of them since.'

'So all this guff about he and Hutch being on some top secret assignment that no one could give me details about was a lie?'

Dobey ran a finger around his collar feeling like a little boy in front of the headmistress. 'We didn't want you to be worried unduly, but as time has gone on and um….certain other things have come to light. Well lets just say I'm now officially worried myself.'

Rachel sat forwards in her seat. 'But you have an APB out on them don't you? I mean two full grown men in a bright red striped car – that's awful difficult to lose.'

'We found the car yesterday' Dobey said carefully.

'Yesterday? Where? Was it abandoned?'

'It was on its roof covered in tree branches. It looked like it had run off the road. Almost like Starsky had lost control. That or he'd wanted us to believe he'd lost control.'

'What does that mean? And what about Davey and Hutch?' Rachel asked, her voice rising now with panic and anger.

'There was no sign of them.'

'So I ask you again Captain. Did you put out an APB?'

'No, but um…..well the FBI have set up a search party.'

It was Nicky's turn to react now. The younger Starsky stood and glared at Dobey. The black man answered his glare before looking away as though he were embarrassed.

'What are the Feds involved for?' Nicky asked softly.

'Sit down son. This isn't easy for any of us, but I'll try to explain as best I can. When Joe Durniak was brought here to Bay City, Starsky and Hutch were given the job of protecting him until he was due to give evidence. When Durniak was shot, the Feds became suspicious. Starsky and Durniak knew each other; Durniak was around when Starsky's Dad was killed. They started snooping around and found $10,000 in Starsky's apartment. For a while they had him taped as being involved until he and Hutch told them about Terry Nash and what had been happening out in the desert. For a while the feds lay low.'

'You're trying to tell me that they thought my Davey was involved in something illegal?' Rachel asked. 'Anyone who has sat in a room with him for more than five minutes would know that was a lie.'

Dobey nodded. 'And I did too, but at the time, my hands were tied. When Terry was brought in, it seemed that Starsky and his partner were in the clear.'

'Why are you using the past tense?' Nick growled. There was little love lest between his elder brother and him, but he too knew that Starsky would never knowingly commit a crime.

'On the day of Durniak's funeral Starsky and Hutch failed to turn up at the cemetery. No-one has seen them since. We do, however, know that they were on their way there.'

'How?'

'We didn't know very much at all until yesterday when we got a call from the Sheriffs department out at Cyote Point. A walker had wondered what his dog was barking at. He went to investigate and found the body of a young woman hald covered by undergrowth. She had a bullet through her head and Starsky and Hutch's cards in her purse.'

'So? Maybe she asked for their protection. They're cops for fucks sake' Nicky almost yelled.

'That's what I thought too son' Dobey said almost sadly. 'and I would have told the Sheriff's officer just that had it not been for the fact that the bullet lodged in the back of her head had been analysed.'

Nicky paled a little and sat down heavily on the seat. 'And?'

'And the bullet matches those discharged from Starsky's gun. Coupled with the fact that the girl is known to be associated with Durniak, it seems Starsky and Hutch are once more on the FBI's most wanted list.'

Rachel buried her face in her hands. 'He would never do that. My Davey would never do that. Surely you believe me Captain. You've worked with him. You've seen how passionate he is about his job. No-one who knows him could believe he would be anything but honest. As for killing anyone in cold blood, let alone a woman…..'

Dobey sighed deeply. 'I'm with you all the way Mrs. Starsky, believe me, but the weight of evidence is against them, you have to see that.'

'I know he wouldn't do anything like that. Not my Davey, not him.'

The big back man got up and came around the desk to kneel a little stiffly in front of the woman. His hands hovered above her shoulders, as though wondering whether to hug her or not. In the end, he chose not, but he lingered there for a few more minutes until Rachel had pulled herself together and stopped weeping. She took a hanky from her purse, dabbed at her eyes and sniffed, shaking herself like a bird getting its feathers back into order. She turned the full force of her piercing blue gaze onto Dobey.

'Find my boy. Find my boy and he'll show you he didn't do it.'

'Mrs Starsky I know in my heart of hearts he didn't, but I need information. I need background stuff on your son and on Joe Durniak. Starsky volunteered for the assignment and yet when we spoke, he seemed to have a love/hate relationship with him. Anything you can tell me would help. Anything.'

'It's very personal' Rachel almost whispered.

'Personal enough to put Starsky and Hutch in danger? Personal enough that your son would kill?'

'Never.' Rachel's eyes shone defiantly and she seemed to pull herself together and sit up straighter.

'Then help me Rachel. Help me find them. Help me set everything straight, because without your help, the FBI will find them and when they do, your son and Hutch will be on death row.'

Rachel looked at her younger son. 'Nicky, why don't you wait outside for me?'

'Why? So that you can tell him all your sordid little details? So you can share our family secrets. Jeez Mom, it aint like I haven't heard 'em all before.'

Dobey looked up, unwilling to enter into what seemed to be a family feud and yet needing information – anything to help his men…..just in case they were still alive. 'Indulge us son. There's coffee in a percolator by the door. We'll only need a few minutes.'

Nick Starsky looked for all the world as though he were going to refuse to move. It showed on his tightly pressed lips and yet it seemed the younger man couldn't just bring himself to remain. With a shrug of his broad shoulders, he got up, have him Mom a none too friendly glare and slammed the door on his way out. That at least seemed to be a family trait. Dobey turned his attention back to Rachel. He pulled up a chair and sat alongside her, close, but not touching. Rachel licked her lips nervously.

'It was a long time ago and Michael, my husband was a young cop trying to make a name for himself. He was good – a little too good. He was moral and that's what almost got him killed on more than one occasion. He tried to take on the Mafia single handed and he came this close so many times to being killed because of his stupid pride. By the time he'd learned his lesson, the New York Kings – the local and the biggest gang - had him proclaimed almost as public enemy number one. I was so scared for him in those days Captain Dobey. You have to understand what it was like for me. I loved him so much and I couldn't stand by and let them kill him just because he'd try to do what he knew was right. Can you understand that?'

'Yeah, I understand' Dobey nodded, feeling somehow dirty for having this determined little woman tell him her deepest, darkest secrets. He patted her knee reassuringly and made his face as blank and bland as possible. Rachel smiled a sad, small smile and continued.

'So after another night when Michael had come home angry that his partner had been shot, I knew I needed to do something. I was selfish. I couldn't contemplate life without my husband. This was before Davey and before Nicky. I wanted the all American dream; a white picket fence, a family…..and my husband by my side always and I knew I would stop at nothing to keep Michael safe. And so I went to Joe Durniak. I'd known him since I was a young girl. And I asked him what it would cost for the Kings to leave Micky alone. He said only one thing. Me'.

Dobey looked up sharply, only sheer will power stopping himself from gasping in astonishment. Talk about a curved ball! The big black man looked at the small woman and was surprised to see tears in Rachel's eyes. She went on.

'He said he wanted one night with me. Just the two of us, and whatever he wanted. And after that he'd leave Micky alone. What could I do? I hated Joe, but I loved my husband. I was young and I had nothing else to bargain with, so I did it' she looked up, the tears now coursing down her cheeks. 'I spent a night with him, and in the morning he drove me home and I made breakfast for Micky as though nothing had happened. He couldn't understand why the Kings behaved so well after that. They never caused him trouble. They never came after him again. And six weeks later I…..I found that I was expecting a baby'.

'You thought it was…..?'

'Yes, Durniak's'.

'And? I'm sorry, that's none of my business' Dobey looked away, wondering if Edith would ever have done similar.

'For a long time I never knew. I kept the secret to myself for a long time after Micky's death. It was only that incident with Starsky in New York that proved once and for all by a blood test that Davey was Micky's. But Joe stood my me throughout. I wanted for nothing. He paid my rent, paid for my air fares to come see Davey. And David hated him for it. But not enough to so anything……stupid. Or illegal.'

Dobey sat back, reeling from the story he'd just heard. Was Rachel right? Would Starsky truly have forgiven and even protected Durniak? Would he Harold do that? Slowly he got up and paced back to his desk, his big honest face a mask. When he reached his chair he was once again composed.

'Thank you Mrs Starsky – for your honesty. We'll take it from here.'

'And you'll find my son?'

'I'll do all I can.'

'And when you find him?'

Dobey sighed. 'One step at a time Rachel. One step at a time huh?'


	6. Chapter 6

**My friends,**

**Thank you for all your wonderful comments. they warm my heart and drive my fingers along my laptop.**

**Now enough of that and lets have a little angst, shall we?**

**Chapter 6**

Fevers rose and fell within David Starsky's body for three days after he initially awoke. During that time, he found himself in an unreal world of nightmares and confusion when the only thing that remained a constant was the pain in his body. Dreams tormented the brunet. Some were scary, all were riddled with discomfort and most eventually shook him awake so that he found himself alone in his hospital room without even memories of his identity to ease himself.

The dreams were a constantly changing landscape. In some of them, a blond haired man remained by his side. The man had no name and often smiled at Starsky. He even used that name – Starsky, or sometimes Starsk – although the doctor and nurses who hovered around on the outskirts of his dream called him by his given name of Ethan. Somehow the name Starsky seemed familiar and the injured brunet fought to regain memories which may give him a clue as to why he felt as he did.

Occasionally there were glimpses of a truth or a memory that seemed tantalisingly close, as though he could see it through a veil of muslin, just out of his reach. But each time he tried to reach out and grasp the memory it floated away from him. A girl with shining eyes and a mop of chestnut hair smiled at him. For some unknown reason he associated her with a fairground. He also knew he knew her body – could smell her perfume and taste the essence of her skin like a familiar wine on the back of his throat.

A big black man. Almost as large around as he was tall. A booming voice and a scowl that could have soured milk. Another black man, this one tall and lanky and with a lugubrious face that occasionally split into a beaming smile.

Were they faces from his past? Or were they characters his imagination had conjured up to fill in the void where his memories should have been? Starsky felt as though he should know them and yet none of the faces had names that he could remember and although they filled him with a warm fuzziness, nothing could replace true friends and true memories.

Then there were the other dreams – the ones that were filled with pain and fear. There seemed to be more of those, or at least they were more powerful – more memorable. The brunet wondered at what had gone on in his past to give him such nightmares. Needles floated in front of his tired eyes and a hideous, scratchy voice hissing "24" at him over and over again. Bears morphed into hooded figures that lurked in the shadows like bit players on a stage waiting for their share of the limelight. Fire and water, ropes and metal restraints hanging from dank rocky walls flashing like cold flames in the periphery of his vision.

And then there was the good, old fashioned nightmares caused by his fevers. Those at least seemed familiar to the sweating man, as though he'd had those same dreams all his life when he'd been sick. The dreams always started the same. He was being chased by a clown in full circus costume, its ginger curly hair and huge red bulbous nose a parody of the normal. It chased Starsky through a forest thick with trees that clung to his legs and arms. As hard as he tried to run, his legs refused to work properly and he resorted to grabbing for the trunks of the trees and hauling himself by his fingernails through the undergrowth. All the time, the clown got closer and closer to him until at last Starsky broke free of the trees and found himself teetering on the edge of a chasm so deep that he could see no bottom to it. The clown walked out into the clearing and started to reach for him. It was the clown, or the void – the rock or the hard place and each time, the brunet would get to this point and step off into the great unknown with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach only to wake himself up screaming or hunched in a ball at the top of his bed, the sheets wrapped around him like the suckers from the trees he'd been avoiding.

That was just how he found himself now, with a soft and soothing voice calling his name as though from a great distance.

'Ethan…..hey Ethan. Shhh, s'ok, s'ok. It's all over now. It was a dream, just a dream.' Mary's voice finally penetrated the abject terror that the brunet felt and he opened his eyes to fix them on the nurse, anchoring himself firmly back in the present. Hesitantly the woman reached out and rested her hand on her patient's shoulder. She was right to be hesitant. Even though Dr Isaac had warned her that the two new men were dangerous, she'd ignored the advice and the first time she'd tried to shake Starsky from a nightmare he'd grabbed her arm and threatened to break it. This time, Starsky merely stared at her until he stopped shaking and his eyes cleared into full recognition.

'Shit…..sorry' he whispered and closed his eyes tightly. He hated feeling like this – as though he were fragile as a kitten, and he hated the fact that the staff at the hospital seemed to tippy-toe around him as though he'd break if they were too rough with him. In fact only Mary seemed to have the right mix of care, concern and bluntness.

'Enough of your bad language! Do you know I've learned a new swear word every hour since you were admitted?' she admonished. Carefully she stood, went to the wash stand and filled a bowl with warm soapy water. She returned and Starsky allowed her to wash his arms, chest and face quietly. He studied her as she worked but as she pulled back the sheets and started to undo the string of his pants, he placed a strong hand over hers.

'Uh uh. Not unless you mean it' he rasped huskily.

Mary tried to look horrified but couldn't quite pull it off. Instead her face split into a grin and she pulled back her hand. 'Oh I could mean it, but I'm not going to start something that you can't finish mister.'

For a moment it looked like the threat may have the desired effect but then a shot of pain from his ribs sent Little Davey back to sleep and Starsky sighed. 'Gimme a week and you aren't gonna be safe shweetheart' he muttered.

'Give you a week and you'll be out of my care and into the clutches of Helga, the physiotherapist. Now she's someone I'd love to see you try it on with!'

'I'm game if she is. I can….' Starsky's words were cut off by a noise outside his door. It was the first time that he'd actually thought about what lay outside the confines of his own room and now he levered himself up onto his elbows. 'What the…..?'

Outside in the corridor there was the sound of a door slamming and then raised voices. The voices got louder and it sounded almost as though a fight were ensuing. A fist could be heard slamming into something softer than the wall. It sounded as though it had met with a body and there was a soft, agonised "umph" and a gasp followed by a rattle of instructions.

'Get a hold of him. Grab that….no, no, not like……careful. Watch that……told ya he was a wild one. Get the needle…..the needle dammit!'

The words faded as the door closed again a little less forcefully and Starsky turned troubled eyes towards his nurse.

'Just what's goin' on here?' he asked carefully. Something about the exchange had unsettled him. Something about the sound of another human being in pain; being manhandled against their will left him feeling cold and sick to his stomach and a deep throbbing pain started up within his body again.

Mary eased her patient back down onto the pillows. 'Not all of our patients are as co-operative, or as charming as you Ethan.'

'No kiddin'!'

'The man next door is….. shall we say he isn't only physically sick. He doesn't know what he's doing and he doesn't sometimes realise that we're here to help him. Sometimes he just lashes out.' Mary got up off the bed and opened a locker on the wall with a small key. From it she took a vial of clear liquid and a hypodermic needle. With practiced ease she drew the drug into the barrel of the syringe and came to inject it into the port of the tube leading into the back of Starsky's hand.

'What're ya givin' me now?'

'Vitamins, an antibiotic and something to help you sleep.'

'Honey I don't need no help sleepin'.' The brunet stretched carefully and snuggled his head against the pillow. His eyelids drooped and a half smile appeared on his lips. 'Utch says I could sleep on a clothes line' he mumbled as sleep finally overtook him.

Mary checked her patient's vitals. Damn he was a tough nut to crack if after all this he could still utter his partner's name! But not as tough a nut as the blond man next door.

Hutch had woken once again to find himself anchored down to his bed by soft but strong medical restraints. After the first "treatment" he'd endured in the spartan white room, he realised that this was far from being a true hospital. The pictures he'd been forced to watch had been of his partner, in his car; smiling as he read a book; crossing a road, although the name given to him had been Ethan Quade. Hutch had yelled that this was a lie, that this was David Starsky and that he demanded to be let out. A polite, firm and reasonable voice told him he was delusional and that they were trying to help him. The voice told Hutch he was sick and that he needed to be cured. Despite the drug in his system the blond had fought with every sinew to remember Starsky. He'd struggled against the restraints holding him down and even as his mind drifted away he still had Starsky's name on his lips.

Waking up in his room after that initial treatment, Hutch had been quiet. His own nurse, a petite young thing called Adele had spoken gently to him, probing his memories. Hutch had been careful. He had felt fuzzy and dissociated and the more they asked him about a partner and his past life, the more he clammed up, acting dumb until he could try to understand what was going on. Eventually, the orderlies came for him again, explaining he'd needed another "treatment" and at that point, the blond had exploded. They'd subdued him easily enough, but each day for three days now they'd come for him at the same time. The men weren't cruel, neither did they hurt him more than they had to, but Hutch could feel his mind slipping away. There were times when he lay awake in his bed wondering if in fact the medics were right. Was he sick? Was he insane? And then a vision of chocolate curls and the most intense blue eyes would convince him once again that the last thing he should do was forget Starsky.

Now, as he'd woken again, the orderly at his right hand side had been a little too complacent and had unfastened the restraint without taking care. Hutch's right foot drew back and had ploughed into the man's jaw sending him to the floor. He'd managed to get most of his body off of the bed, but he was still fastened by his left hand and the other orderly had been able to do nothing more than fight back, driving his own fist into Hutch's stomach and driving the air from the blond's body.

Isaac appeared at the door and took immediate charge, instructing Adele to plunge a double dose of sedative into her patient's butt leaving Hutch dangling inert by his left wrist from the bed and the orderlies nursing their own wounds.

The doctor tutted. 'Get him on the gurney and follow me. It's going to be a long night. We don't have time for all this' he muttered as the two white uniformed men bundled Hutch unceremoniously onto the gurney and fastened the leather straps extra tight.

Back in the white rook, Isaac shone his penlight into Hutch's eyes, the brightness bringing a groan from the blond. As he swam back up through the mists, he recognised the doctors face and was about to say something when Isaac cut him dead.

'That's enough Mr Hutchinson. That's the last time you're going to hear that name, or Starsky's. No more Mr Nice guy. Say goodbye to your identity Ken. However strong your mind, tomorrow when you awake you will be Ray Hunt and believe it or believe it not, you are going to hate Starsky enough to kill him.'

Without giving the blond time to reply, the doctor sunk a needle into Hutch's arm. The blond had time only to feel the earphones being secured around his head again. This time he felt sick to his stomach. The drug they'd given him seemed different somehow and yet he wouldn't forget.

He wouldn't.

Images started to flicker in front of him. Starsky crossing the road; the brunet with a gun in his hand; Starsky laughing – laughing at him.

Hutch struggled against the binders surrounding his body. 'Starsk…..' he mumbled. 'God Starsk….. Won't forget……Starskyyyyy.'


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Three days into further treatment and the drug had finally succeeding in its job. The man who used to be Ken Hutchinson sat quietly by the side of his bed, his eyes closed and his chin almost resting on his chest. Dressed in white scrubs and with his damaged arm strapped against his chest, he had no place to go, even if the door to his room had not been kept locked.

His final treatment had been three hours ago. Now the headphones were gone and the white room nothing more than a nightmare. Gone too were his memories – all of them. The man in the chair had no name, no identity, no memories and no strength to question why. The triple dose of drug he'd been given in as many days had finally killed off the last of the fight in the blond and now there remained only an empty shell to be filled up again with carefully chosen and planted information garnered by Dr Isaac, Mr Lake and the omnipresent Mr Da Luca.

The good doctor walked into the room, making the blond shell jump slightly in his chair. Cloudy blue eyes looked up slowly and focused on the doctor's face and a string of silvery saliva beaded from Hutch's slack mouth. Isaac knelt gently by the chair and wiped away the spit with his handkerchief.

'How are you feeling, my friend?' he asked softly.

'Dunno.' Hutch's voice was a shadow of its former self. He'd screamed Starsky's name into the white room until his vocal chords had threatened to snap. He'd flung himself time and again against the straps anchoring him down until blue/black bruises showed lividly against the skin of his arms and legs and chest. Not that he remembered any of that now….. memories were a thing of the past.

'You must have a lot of questions for me?'

Hutch glanced up, unable to meet the doctor's eye. Thinking seemed to hurt. Questions were too much hardship. 'Have I?' he asked.

'Do you know who I am?'

The flaxen haired man looked warily at the guy in the white coat. Nothing about the man looked familiar. Nothing about the room looked familiar. Sickeningly, not even Hutch's own voice sounded right. He shook his head.

Isaac nodded. 'I can understand you must be feeling a little confused right now. I'm your doctor. I'm here to make things ok for you. Will you let me help you?'

The question seemed to confuse the patient and for a moment he stared into space. Eventually something seemed to click and the blond man nodded. 'I guess. M'tired.'

'Yes, you've been very sick, but I'm going to help you recover. We need to take things a little at a time.'

'Sick?'

'Yes, that's why you feel tired. I want you to rest for the rest of the day. Is there anything bothering you? Is there anything you want to ask me?' Isaac held his breath. He'd come this far before and this was the moment of truth. He waited as Hutch closed his eyes. His head bowed again. Thinking seemed too difficult a task. Just breathing right then seemed too tough. His body ached, his head ached and he had a yawning cavern of dark and emptiness deep inside him. For an eternity Hutch slumped in his chair, the only sound in the room being the soft tick of a clock on the wall. Eventually though, the gnawing emptiness made him look up and one question was forced from his lips.

'Who am I?'

Isaac smiled a knowing smile. 'A good place to start. 'Your name is Ray Hunt. You came to us almost a month ago and since then we've been fighting to make you well.'

A small hint of light showed in the blue eyes looking up at the doctor. 'What's matter with me?'

The doctor stood up. 'It is too early for all this my friend. I will leave you to the tender ministrations of Adele, your nurse and I will be back to see you this evening. Try not to concern yourself with your worries. I will be here to answer all your questions in time. Rest. Get back into the bed now and sleep. You're amongst friends.'

Hutch nodded weakly. He didn't feel as though he were amongst friends. In fact he didn't seem to "feel" at all. Along with the emptiness caused by his memory loss, he seemed to be devoid of emotion. He felt weary; sore and weary, as though he'd run a marathon. He had the impression that he'd already been through a lot and yet that impression was insubstantial. He had nothing on which to base that assumption and he had only the doctor and the nurse to trust. As Isaac closed the door behind him, Adele came to kneel by his chair.

'Ray, shall we get you back into bed? It's been a big day for you and you must be exhausted.'

Carefully the man in the chair examined the woman's face. There seemed to be no deception there. In fact the only thing Hutch registered was an overwhelming need to help. He nodded and allowed the small woman to help him up. He stood on rubber legs feeling dizzy and weak. A sheen of perspiration bloomed over his back and chest and prickled across the bridge of his nose and the room spun. Hutch made a grab for the bed and leaned heavily against it.

'What's the matter with me?' he asked softly.

'You're weak. This is your first time out of bed in almost a month and you've hardly eaten anything. You need to do as Dr Isaac says and rest. Once you're in bed, I'll bring you some soup and then you can sleep. Does that sound good?'

Hutch eased himself into the bed and lay panting. 'Does the package include you?'

'I can sit with you a while, if you like?'

The blond nodded. He was almost afraid to admit to himself that he didn't want to be alone. Once upon a time he may have been good with his own company, but that was when he probably had memories; a family; friends. With nothing to anchor to he felt cast adrift on a huge empty ocean and the only safe port in sight was this small, pretty nurse. He nodded.

'I'd like that. Do you know anythin' about me? I mean is there anythin' you can tell me about…..well, me?'

Adele grinned. 'Apart from the fact that you are one hell of a fighter? Let me go and get something for you to eat. I'll be back soon, ok? Don't go anywhere.'

Hutch snuggled back against the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. He felt better than he had done when the doctor had first walked in. Then he'd felt as though he could hardly string two words together. Now he felt weary and…… He searched for the word. Incomplete. That was it. He felt incomplete and as the door clicked too and a lock slid softly into place, another emotion reared its ugly head – this one was called fear.

Outside the room, a little way down the hallway, two men watched on a monitor as Adele walked out of the blond's room.

'It's worked for sure this time?' Da Luca asked.

Mr Lake nodded. 'Isaac has assured me. Not even an Oscar winning actor could put on that sort of display. It's taken some time, but right now he's ours, totally. We need only feed him the memories we want to and we'll be all set for the showdown.'

'Are we ready?'

Mr Lake grinned. 'Oh yeah, we're ready.'

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

Ethan Quade bent over to catch his breath as a drop of sweat slipped off of his nose to stain the green matting of the gym floor. At his side a woman almost as tall as he was and almost as tanned stood watching him quietly.

'I told you that you'd had enough for today.'

'I just wanted one more round, just to prove I could do it. Helga? Please?'

The physiotherapist threw up her hands in mock surrender. 'What am I going to do with you?'

Ethan wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. 'I didn't know that was on the menu!'

The woman gently swatted the oh-so-tight rump in front of her. 'It isn't. You are so not my type mister. The doctor will not be please if you split open your scar after he's taken all that time to patch you back together.'

Quade looked down at his body and snorted. 'Looks like he wasn't the first to try huh?' Gently he traced one of a group of long silvery incision scars down from the angle of his left shoulder and across his pectoral muscle. It disappeared into a small divot of flesh that looked as though it had once housed a drain of some kind. He looked up, chocolate coloured curls falling towards his left eye. 'I wonder if my middle name is Lucky?'

'The doctor said he has some news for you. Maybe today you'll find out?'

Quade shrugged. In reality he'd pushed himself so hard in the gym this morning because he wanted to take his mind off the meeting with the doctor that afternoon. Isaac had spent some time over the past week with the tanned patient. Starsky's fevers had come and gone and he'd gotten himself up and around. He'd even got rid of the drips and tubes and had started to come down to the gym twice a day. Helga he could handle. The doctor's visits were something else completely.

Quade had been fearful at first. Not having any memories was bad enough, but the fear of what those memories might be seemed worse somehow. He'd been amazed at the scars across his body when he'd seen himself in the bathroom mirror. The new scars from his accident overlay older, silvery ones across h. How had he got them? What ha dis left shoulder and further down on his right calf. What the hell had happened to him? Some of the scars were surgical, some spoke of other traumas. Some looked a little too much like gunshot wounds to be explained in any other way. Would an ordinary law abiding citizen really have a body as well-weathered as his? Could there be an innocent explanation for the scars? It seemed unlikely and as much as Quade wanted to have some memories of his own, he also wanted a quiet life – maybe to be told that he was the father of 2.5 kids and that he mowed the lawn on Sundays and took his family to the ball game on Saturdays. In his minds eye, he drove a truck or a four by four. He enjoyed a round of golf and he was maybe a member of the local shooting range.

In his darker moments, Quade didn't want to think about his past because to think of other possibilities made them all the more real. It was these possibilities that Quade feared and these possibilities that the doctor was likely to explore this afternoon.

'What do you say to some time on the punchbag?' the curly haired man asked, changing the subject.

Helga shook her head. 'I say no. you may not be scared to incur Dr Isaac's wrath, but I am. Go and take your shower, get dressed and I'll be waiting to take you back to your room.'

'I'm a big boy. I can find my own way.'

'Size isn't an issue Ethan! Just go and get showered huh?'

Quade took the towel from around his neck and flung it at the woman. She caught it neatly and pushed it into the laundry basket and watched as the muscular man made his way into the bathroom.

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

At 2:30 that afternoon, Captain Dobey sat hunched behind his desk at the Metro. After getting off of the phone with Rachel Starsky again, he now had a new wrath to face and without any preamble or knock on the door, a tall man with thinning mousy coloured hair walked in, followed by a smaller Puerto Rican. Nether of them smiled at Dobey and both of them sat down without being asked. Dobey grunted.

'Carmichael….Ramirez.'

'Any news on your um….missing men?' Carmichael asked as though he expected Starsky and Hutch to spring out from behind Dobey's chair.

'You know I haven't. Neither have you Feds, otherwise you'd have been climbing all over this office with huge grins on your faces.'

'Captain we know you're close to your men and believe me, no one values loyalty more than I do, but if you know where they are, you're gonna have to tell us sooner or later.'

'When hell freezes over.'

'So you do know?'

Dobey scowled. 'No, I don't.'

Carmichael sighed. '$10,000 was found in Sergeant Starsky's apartment after Durniak's death. He and Sergeant Hutchinson were the only ones to have been with Durniak before he was shot. Shot, I might add by one Terry Nash who conveniently doesn't exist! Now they don't show up for the biggest funeral of the year and oh…..just to add to the mix, Durniak's niece turns up dead with their cards in her purse and Starsky's bullet through her brain! Now tell me they aren't involved. Tell me they aren't laying low huh?'

Dobey listened to the catalogue of incriminating evidence. Put coldly and logically like that even he would have convicted his men of murder. And yet….

Tiredly the Captain sighed. 'I haven't seen them. I don't know where they are. What more can I say?'

'You can tell me that when….. and I do mean when – you find them you're gonna arrest them, sling them in jail and throw away the key. Is that clear Captain?' Carmichael got up and Ramirez followed like a well trained puppy.

Dobey gave them his best blank face. 'I heard. Now get out.' He watched as Carmichael closed the door violently behind him. 'Where are you?' he muttered. 'C'mon guys, gimme a sign here.'


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Ethan Quade sat in his small room awaiting the arrival of Dr Isaac. He'd had a shower, a light lunch and a nap on his bed, but his mind was not at rest. Today it seemed he was going to learn who he was and the truth was scary. Someone had once told him it was better to travel hopefully than to arrive. For the past month, Quade had been travelling hopefully down the road of his recovery. He had endured the fevers, the pain, the aches and pains without comment. He'd spent the deep dark nights of his recovery laying alone in his bed trying the piece together the tatters of his memory without success. The nurses had told him that the car they'd found him in had been so badly damaged that it was lucky he'd escaped with his life. A concussion and the resulting total amnesia seemed a small price to pay for his memories and yet he'd never appreciated until now just what his past life meant to him and yet without an identity he felt like a no-one. The only difficulty was that knowing he was a no-one was one thing. Longing for an identity and then finding out that he didn't like himself was something else altogether.

What would he do then? What would he do if he found that he was unable to live with a past he knew nothing about? Quade sighed and steepled his fingers. A noise at the door made him jump and Isaac but his smiling face around the corner.

'Hey Doc' Quade said softly, his heart beating just a little faster.

'You're looking much better today. Helga tells me you had a good work out in the gym this morning.'

The curly haired man grunted. 'I should be able to do more.'

'Measured against whose standards?'

'Dunno. Mine? Oh hell Doc, I have no clue. If you say I'm doin' ok then I'll take your word for it.'

Isaac smiled. 'Yes, you're doing fine. Let me check your wounds, and then we can talk.' The doctor strode to the bed and as Quade lay back and stared at the ceiling, the doctor probed the surgical scars with practiced fingers. Once or twice he drew a hiss of discomfort as his fingers pressed too hard. Quade drew up his knees in surprise as Isaac pressed against the fourth rib on the left and grunted softly.

'Sorry. That rib is almost healed but you've been doing too much. I told you you need to be careful. This has been no walk in the park for your body you know. You can only heal so many times.'

'And it looks like I've done a whole bunch of healin' before.'

Isaac sat back on the bed and watched as Quade pulled his pyjama shirt back down. 'How are you feeling?' he asked.

'You asked me that already.'

The doctor shook his head. 'I know how your body is feeling. I want to know what's up here' he said, patting the side of his head with his finger.

Quade closed his eyes and let out a sigh. 'I don't know how I'm feelin'. Confused? Empty; scared; screwed. You said you had information for me.'

'Are you ready for it?'

The man on the bed shrugged his shoulders. 'Sumthin about your voice says maybe I won't be. What're ya gonna tell me Doc?'

'Ethan some things are better left until you're completely well. I mean some things you need time to come to terms with. I have to make sure that you're strong enough for all this.'

'Well we aren't gonna know that until you tell me now are we?' Ethan's voice rose and there was a touch of anger coloured by more than a little fear. The suspense, as they said in all good books, was killing him and he eyed the buff coloured folder with some trepidation. 'Is that it? Is that my life story?'

'It is. Do you want me to stay with you?' Isaac asked.

Quade's eyes were fastened on the folder. 'Huh? Oh um….no, I'd um….I need to do this on my own.'

The doctor stood and handed the folder to his patient. 'Take it easy Ethan. Take it easy and try not to get too excited, huh?'

Piercing blue eyes stared back almost defiantly. 'I'll be fine. And Doc?'

'Huh?'

'Thanks.'

The doctor paused with his hand on the door. 'Don't thank me till you've read it through. I'll be down the hall if you need me, ok?'

The door closed and suddenly Quade was alone in the quiet of the small room. For an age he stared at the folder, his thumb running across the single string fastener. It was almost as though his body had frozen; frozen in denial. With a huge mental shrug, he slipped his thumb nail under the seal and flipped open the folder so that a host of papers spilled out onto the bed. For a moment he stared down at the first slip.

Ethan Daniel Quade born Boston Mass 11th March 1943, mother Martha Quade nee Freerstein. Religion – Jewish. There was no father named and the blue and white birth certificate with its original seal looked back up at him. Ok, so he hadn't been knitted by the American Women's Voluntary Service! He was real and had a certificate to prove it. And Boston! The doctor had told he'd been from Jacksonville Florida. Boston huh? He was a helluva way from home.

Fumbling further through the documents, Quade felt like a child at Christmas. The presents were his memories and as he looked at each document it seemed he sparked some remembered event.

Isaac and his friends had certainly been thorough. Not only was there a record card from his first grade school, there was also a 25 meter swimming certificate, a certificate of competency from a Boston based shooting club dated 10 years ago and a newly renewed shotgun and handgun licence from the State of California.

There was also certificate of honourable discharge from the United States Army dated two years ago where it seemed Quade had spent his time in Vietnam as a sniper and then as a bomb disposal tech. The discharge certificate said he'd been involved in a bomb blast and badly wounded. That would explain the scarring over his body.

Hmm. Soldier. He could live with being a soldier boy! And a good thing about the amnesia – at least he didn't need to remember any shit that went on in Vietnam.

The past two years though seemed to have been less well documented. There didn't seem to be any indication of what he'd done with himself for those two years after the Army although by the look of the state of his body before this accident, recovering would have been a good guess.

There was one more document that Quade had still to look at. This wasn't so much an official document as a newspaper cutting dated around eight months ago. It was a cutting from the Boston Herald and it showed a picture of a young man who looked staggeringly like Quade. The young man was being led away from a court room in handcuffs by a police officer and the headline above the picture read: DRUG ADDICT KILLED IN SLAMMER FOR HANDFUL OF DOPE.

With some sort of sick fascination the man on the bed started to read the article below the picture and as he did so a tide of alarm and then anger ran through his body.

_Christopher Quade, a 21 year old addict from Boston's south side was found dead in the county lockup this morning._

_Quade, jailed for possession and distribution of cocaine and amphetamine was found strangled to death in the cell he shared with Ray Hunt a well known dealer originally from Seattle. Authorities say there had been tension between the two inmates for some time although they had not suspected it would go as far as death._

_A spokesman for the jail said Quade had been a difficult man to deal with but he had been trying hard to kick his addiction. Quade's mother, Martha was being comforted at home by friends. She has one other older son whose location is unknown at this time._

_Hunt, Quade's murderer was this morning on the run having skipped custody whilst being transferred to another facility. The public are warned not to approach Hunt who is likely to be armed and dangerous._

Ethan sat staring at the newspaper cutting for what seemed like an eternity. Emotions ran unchecked through his head. He had a Mom. He also had a little brother. No, scrap that. He used to have a little brother.

His baby brother Chris.

Quade closed his eyes and tried to visualise the younger man. Somewhere, lurking in the dim recesses of his mind he did seem to remember a younger brother. One with hair as curly as his own and a cheeky smile, cocky walk and a mouth that was just big enough to get him into trouble. Yet try as he might, Quade was unable to get a clear picture of the younger man in his head. All that he saw was that stark, grainy, black and white picture of Chris being lead away in handcuffs. Lead away to his death.

Leaning back on his pillows, the euphoria of his memories was forgotten as Quade thought about how it must have been for the younger man. Locked in a cell with a monster whose only device in the world was to get more drugs. This Ray Hunt sounded older than Chris. Was he bigger? Did he fight dirty? Had Chris screamed and shouted for help? Or had he tried to fight back silently? What were the guards doing, or did they just ignore the commotion and continue joking amongst themselves?

The more Quade thought about the scene, the more he felt sick to his stomach. He'd been newly introduced to his family only to have one family member torn away from him. He hated drugs (he had that feeling deep down in his bones) and he hated bullies. Ray Hunt sounded like a bully and suddenly there was purpose in Quade's life again.

There's nothing like cold, icy revenge to revitalise tired muscles and a jaded palate. Something boiled up from deep inside the injured man's chest and welled out in a scream of fury. His hands tore at the newspaper article and the print mixed with the tears he realised that were flowing freely down his cheeks.

Quade sprang fro the bed, his whole frame trembling as he went to the door to open it and shout for Isaac. The door was locked and that small thing was enough to sent the curly haired man over the edge.

The month of pain, fever, recovery and emptiness flowed up from his toes and cascaded out in an attack against the door. Quade kicked at the wood with his bare feet. He pounded on the door with his fists until dark, bloody smudges appeared on the white painted wood. He yelled and screamed for someone to come and let him out until his voice was hoarse and he had barely enough strength to keep himself upright. His chest was on fire, his ribs smarting with the effort and yet he couldn't let go of the anger that had been bottled up inside him for those weeks.

Outside, Isaac and Mr Lake listened to the commotion and watched as the hard wooden door rattled on its hinges. After maybe three or four minutes Lake grinned and turned to the doctor.

'I think we stirred his pot enough, don't you?'

'Wouldn't do to put him back in his recovery too much.'

'Let me get the orderlies. I think I need backup' Isaac said and motioned for two of the beefiest of his men to accompany him. As they opened the door Quade swung for the closest man, his rage blinding him to who was trying to help him. The orderly ducked and the second man tackled Quade low down, grabbing his knees and bearing the patient to the ground so that the two man could pin the struggling man down while Isaac took the cover off his syringe with his teeth and sunk the needle into Quade's upper arm. The doctor stood back and watched as slowly Quade's struggles slowed and finally the orderlies pulled the sleepy man to his feet and manoeuvred him back onto the bed. Quade lay panting and fighting the soporific effects of the drug.

'I told you it was too early for you to read the dossier' Isaac said gently, perching on the edge of the bed by the side of his patient.

Quade blinked. 'I need t'get outa here Doc.'

'Why? You aren't fully healed yet.'

'There's a man….gotta find him……gotta kill him.'

'Ethan you aren't fit for that yet. Listen to yourself.'

Quade tossed his head on the pillow, fighting the sedative. 'I gotta….don't understand. I gotta…..kid brother……dead. Need t'find……'

'Who? Who do you need to find? Maybe I can help?' Isaac sat forwards slightly looking every inch the confidente.

Ethan was almost out of time. The sedative had been strong as the doctor had intended, With his last reserve of energy, he licked dry lips and breathed two words. 'Ray Hunt.'

Isaac smiled sadly and patted his patient on the shoulder. The hours of work with the pictures and the headphones whilst Starsky had been "asleep" and recevering had paid off. The month of conditioning had worked and now the trigger had been given. Ray Hunt, alias Ken Hutchinson was now once again the most important person in Starsky's life. But now friend had turned into enemy and the Corproration and Mr Da Luca could sit back and enjoy the show.

'I'll do everything I can possibly do to help, but now you should rest. Tomorrow is a whole other day.' Isaac got up and left his patient to his dreams of revenge, closed the door and gave Mr Lake the thumbs up.

'When do we move to Hutchinson? And how?' the doctor asked.

Lake smiled again, a wolfish smile that did not light up his eyes. 'No time like the present' he said. 'Suddenly Mr Hutchinson alias Hunt is going to have a visitor – shall we call him a blast from his past? By the end of the week, we should be ready to move to phase two.'


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Ray Hunt awoke slowly in another part of Isaac's facility. He was blissfully unaware of what had gone on with the other man in his life. He was blissfully unaware of everything apart from the sight of Adele his nurse bending over the wash stand in his room, the tight little uniform stretched across her ass so temptingly. He let out a small sigh, thankful for some distraction in his day of boredom and the nurse turned to see him looking at her.

'Good morning' she smiled, bringing the bowl over to the bed and placing it on the bedside table.

'Mornin'.'

'How are you this morning? Can I get you anything?'

The blond man snuggled his head against a pillow and tried to ignore the flashback to a previous life. He was led in bed with another pretty nurse bending over him to give him a shave. His shoulder was bandaged and there was a large black man standing at the bottom of the bed.

Stop it Hunt! It's your mind playing tricks. It never happened. The past never happened, just resign yourself to the here and now and be thankful your nurse looks more like Kim Bassinger than Joan Rivers.

'Nothing that's in that bowl of water' Hunt said hungrily. His eyes lingered on the top button of Adele's uniform and he imagined it popping under the pressure from his fingers. The woman saw it in her patient's eyes and something low down in her belly gave a flip. She was from a nursing agency. Her last four jobs had been to look after old, fat guys in their seventies. Their bank balances were the only healthy things about them. This new man; this handsome blond man with the haunted, hunted look in his crystal blue eyes made her suddenly aware of how alluring a nurses uniform could be to the right person. Maybe the man in the bed was the right person?

Ray Hunt had an air of danger about him. He was cool, controlled. In another situation he might have been icy and yet bubbling away just under the surface was a vulnerability that she had only seen once or twice. Those times Hunt had been sick, especially after Dr Isaac had taken him for one of his treatments. Then the orderlies had brought her patient back sick and disorientated and sometimes incoherent. At those times, she'd wanted nothing more than to get into bed by the blond's side, snuggle his body against hers and run her fingers the soft, flaxen bangs. But she was a nurse – a professional. Instead of caving in to her cravings, she'd sat by his side, wiped away the sweat beading on his forehead and held his hand. She even had the bruises on her fingers to prove the bone crushing power of his hold when he'd shouted out into his darkness and pain.

Now, those same crystal blue eyes regarded her with some other emotion. It was more than desire. It was almost a hunger, bare and exposed and raw and her body answered his need with small leaps of joy.

Adele dropped her eyes from the piercing gaze and her hands toyed with the soap in the bowl of water. Slowly Adele picked up the bar of soap and squidged it through her hands. Hunt gulped, the metaphor not lost on him and he sighed. 'Well maybe it is in the water.'

Adele giggled and the girlish sound was like a fur mitten running down Hunt's back. He reached for the nurse and almost reluctantly she allowed him to pull her down towards him. Their lips brushed. The kiss was feather light - a ghost of a touch and then Adele pulled away to look into the man's face.

'So you are feeling better?' she asked a little breathlessly.

Truthfully Hunt didn't know how he felt. He felt itchy as though his skin wanted to crawl off of his body. He needed something because he was tired of facing the four walls of his room or the equally boring four walls of the gym. He'd tried so hard not to think about his past that now he was scared to think at all and the vision of this young woman, dressed if not to impress than at least to allure, had his body twitching seven ways to Christmas. Did he want her? Was the Pope a Catholic? And yet that wasn't the only thing he wanted. He wanted…. No, he needed answers and the suspense was almost killing him. His body had healed sufficiently that he was over his aches and most of the pains. He could set himself a punishing schedule in the gym, but always, even after the most gruelling of work outs, he had that emptiness in his head and in his heart.

Ray Hunt needed answers. But if he couldn't get them then distraction was the next best thing and hungrily he pulled Adele's body back against him this time claiming her lips as his own as his hand strayed up to that oh-so-tempting top button.

The blond felt Adele's body tremble as the button came undone. The second button was easier and after the third Hunt realised that the nurse was wearing nothing under the thin pink dress. Nothing like being prepared! Idly he wondered if she'd been a girl scout.

Adele sighed into Hunt's mouth as his hands insinuated themselves inside her uniform. She'd been careful to lock the door behind her and pull the modesty curtain over the small observation window. Now truly alone, she knelt on the bed and snuggled against Hunt's hard lean body, revelling in his musky aroma and allowing herself to be seduced by his hands. Hunt felt exhilarated. The injuries to his own body had left him wondering whether everything would work again. The centre of his body had been a mass of black and blue bruises after the accident and for a while even the thought of an erection left him feeling vaguely nauseous. Now Little Ray rose to the occasion and Hunt felt a slim, cool hand wrap itself around his member, Adele's fingers whisper soft on his overheated flesh as she gently wiped at the moisture around his tip. With breath coming hard and fast now, Hunt rolled over in one fluid movement, gritting his teeth against any residual pain. He looked down at the petite woman and tossed his leg over her body, pinning her to the bed. There was nothing gentle now about his love making. After a month of crap he felt his body surge into life and Ray Hunt wanted to celebrate his return. With a barely suppressed snarl he leaned in and raped Adele's mouth with his tongue whilst his right hand pulled her uniform up so that he could gain access to the centre of her body. For a moment Hunt lost himself in the feel of the woman's body beneath his. Once again he was in control and once again he was confident and capable enough to do this. He almost let his head back to give a snort of happiness and only the small pain sound from below him stopped him in his tracks.

Beneath him, Hunt saw the look of fear on Adele's face. This wasn't what she'd fantasised about. They'd told her the patient was dangerous but like thousands of women before her, she'd had the fantasy that she could tame the beast. Reality was just a little too frightening for her and she'd stopped moving, her hand frozen besides her mouth to stop from crying out.

Hunt stopped. Half of him was ashamed and wanted to comfort her. Half of him wanted to take the woman by force and complete what he'd started. The thought scared the man so much that with a cry of rage he shot off the bed and backed himself into a corner.

'Get outa here' Hunt snarled. 'Get out and stay out. Leave me alone, ok? I'm bad for you.'

Without waiting for a reply, Adele slithered off of the bed, clutching her uniform around her and bolted for the door as though at any minute she expected Hunt to try to stop her. Instead, the blond turned and balled his hand into a fist which he ploughed full force into the wall by the side of his head. Without knowing it, tears poured down his cheeks and he sank slowly to the ground where Isaac found him a quarter of an hour later, asleep in a ball and holding his injured right hand to his chest. The doctor walked quietly over to the unconscious man and touched him lightly on the shoulder, stepping back cautiously to a safe distance. Hunt's eyes opened and for a moment there was a question there. What was he doing on the floor and why did his hand hurt? He looked up and saw the doctor and at the same time the memory of what he'd done to Adele came flooding back. Using the wall to brace himself, Hunt got to his feet and stood leaning against the cool plaster.

'Is she ok? The nurse. Is she ok? I didn't mean…..God I didn't mean to hurt her.'

'She'll be fine. She was shaken but we've sent her home. You won't be seeing her again. How are you? Let me look at that hand huh?' Isaac's voice was gentle and soothing and it struck Hunt as odd that he wasn't more angry about what Hunt had done to Adele – or tried to do.

Quietly the blond submitted to the doctor probing his injured hand. It had swollen and there were cuts across his knuckles with dried blood in sticky rivulets down to his wrist.

'It needs strapping' the doctor grunted.

'It's fine.'

'Let me be the judge of….'

Hunt's voice rose. 'I said it's fine. Just leave me alone huh? I can't face talking right now.'

'Not even to an old friend?'

Ray's eyes met Isaac's. 'Don't take this the wrong way Doc, but I wouldn't exactly call you a bosom buddy.'

Isaac shook his head. 'No offence taken, but what if I was to tell you that you had a visitor who knew you before the accident. I managed to track him down and I thought you could use a friend to talk to.'

Hunt looked suspicious? 'You've tracked a friend of mine down? Who? Why?'

'Because as well as looking after your body, I'm also concerned about your mind, my friend. You seemed like you needed someone from the old days to talk to so I managed to find Patrick O'Malley, a friend of yours from Seattle.'

The blond man shook his head. 'Do I know him? His name don't mean anything.'

Isaac smiled. 'Let me bring him in. You might start to remember once you get to talking.'

Hunt shrugged non-committally. 'Knock yourself out Doc, I'm not goin' anywhere.'

Isaac rose from the bed and went to the door. 'When you've had enough I'll have the orderlies escort Mr O'Malley out. Enjoy.'

A moment later another strange face stuck its head around the door. Mr Lake plastered on his best friendly smile and walked into the room with his hand extended.

'Ray! Oh my god Ray Hunt. They said it was you but we all thought you were dead!'

Hunt stared at the man in his room longing for some spark of recognition. None came, but ever the optimist, he decided to give it some time and play along. After all, he had nothing else to go on and this man seemed to know him well enough.

'I um….I'm sorry Pal but I don't know you. Do I?'

The visitors face fell. 'Shit Ray. They said your head was pretty fucked but I had no idea. How can I help?'

The blond shrugged. 'The Doc says you know me, so tell me about myself. Maybe I'll start to remember.'

Lake/O'Malley sat down with a sigh and seemed to compose himself. 'Where do I start?'

'At the beginning. I don't remember a fuckin' thing.'

'Oh this is so fuckin' weird! OK well, you're Raymond Maxwell Hunt and you're 32. You were born in Rainier Beach Seattle. Your Mom died last year and your Dad died a while ago. You're a fire fighter with Station 33, or at least you were until about 6 months ago.'

Hunt lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A firefighter huh? It didn't seem to fit and yet something about being an emergency worker felt right. That had been a curved ball but he could have been a lot worse. Lake/O'Malley was continuing.

'You're the Mariners biggest fan and you've never missed a game. You like to keep fit, you shoot skeet, you dive and you like climbing. Did I miss anything?'

'Dunno. Did you?' Hunt felt no attachment to this man at all. He'd no spark of recognition, no feeling of belonging with this man, in fact nothing but cold indifference. Was this how getting his memories back was supposed to feel? 'How do I know you?'

Lake/O'Malley let out a small snort. 'My God, they weren't joking when they said your head was screwed. We've known each other ever since you joined Station 33. I taught you all you know. I was your buddy when you were a rookie. Don't you remember anything?'

'Uh uh. Sorry.'

The visitors face fell. 'It's as well' he muttered.

'Why d'ya say that?'

'Nothin.'

Hunt sat up on the bed and glared. 'Don't come into my room like a long lost friend, feed me this shit and then clam up on me. If there's something else tell me!'

Lake/O'Malley let out a dramatic sigh. 'Ok Pal, you asked. You've been gone from the fire service for around 6 months. You resigned shortly after your sister….. Are you sure you want to hear?'

Hunt let out a low growl and Lake/O'Malley held up his hand. 'Ok ok. It was in all the papers. Your sister Candy had been going out with a guy. Everyone told her he was wrong for her but she was always headstrong. Anyways she went out with him one night and he got drunk. He attacked her and raped her buddy.'

Hunt put his head in his hands. Maybe he didn't want to know after all. 'Go on' he said softly.

'We all rallied around her. You were great. You wanted to kill the boyfriend there and then but instead you concentrated on Candy. She wouldn't have an abortion but when her time came….. well she didn't make it Pal. I'm sorry. Neither did the kid – a boy.'

'Shit.'

'After that, you went wild. It's been your driving force since then Ray. You wanted revenge and you've spent the last 6 months trying to find the guy.'

'His name?'

'I dunno Ray. Are you sure you want to….' Lake/O'Malley's words were cut off as Hunt sprang from the bed and wrapped his hands around his "friend's" neck.

'I asked for the punk's name.'

'Quade. Ethan Quade.' Lake/O'Malley's voice came out in a shocked squeak that the man did not need to fake. Hutch/Hunt's hands were intent on cutting off his breath.

'I remember. I remember that name. I remember wanting to kill the bastard.'

Lake/O'Malley backed away from the maddened blond to a safe distance, his eyes fixed on the angry man in front of him. 'Do you still feel that way?'

Hunt looked up, his face crumpled into an angry frown. 'Oh yeah.'

Lake/O'Malley grinned, rubbing at the bruises already forming around his neck.. 'Good, coz I can feed him to you on a plate.'


	10. Chapter 10

**I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas. Here's to the New Year!**

**Chapter 10**

'Well Mr Lake. How was graduation day for our two subjects?' Mr Da Luca sat in his leather chair in his well appointed office, the smoke from his Cuban cigar curling upwards from his mouth. Lake stood respectfully in front of the desk, Dr Isaac at his side.

'Truthfully Sir, I'm not sure. The dark haired one seems more……compliant some way. He doesn't seem to be internalising his fears like the blond. There's something about him that's unreadable.'

'Explain.'

'Well, we gave him the dosier. Anyone reading that shit about his baby brother – we gave him the autopsy report showing young Christopher had been raped before he died – would want to kill the murderer and sure, Starsky was mad as hell. It took three of us to hold him down and sedate him, but I can't read him. When the anger had faded a little he seemed almost amenable. I don't know if it's a show, or if that's the way he usually is.'

Da Luca sat up a little taller in his chair. 'Will he do the job?'

'At this moment in time, I'm not sure. If I had another two weeks with them I could really make certain, but at the moment….'

'And what of the other one?'

Lake cleared his throat. 'He's dangerous. Maybe it's because he didn't have the head injury in the crash like Starsky did. The drug seems to have worked differently on him. I sent the girl in to test him and he went for the bate, but not as far as I would have liked. He stopped himself short of the act, but watching on the monitor I could see it in his body language. He's full of rage. I'm just disappointed we had to waste the girl before I could pump him up enough to kill her himself.'

'You mean he too is a failure?' Da Luca's eyes narrowed as he studied the two men in front of him. 'Mr Lake I'm not a patient man. I allowed you to be creative. It would have been far simpler to have finished them in the car crash, but I indulged you and you assured me you could pull this off.'

Lake looked at his shoes. 'I know Sir and for that I apologise. I misread them both although I should have studied their profiles more carefully. Starsky is ex-army and he spent some time in 'Nam. He was ill treated and in some men it hardens them to life in general. It's going to take more than mere words to push Starsky's buttons enough for him to hunt and kill Hutchinson.'

'And Hutchinson? Are you telling me we can't count on him either?'

'Hutchinson is a different kind of man. He's in tune with his feelings. He thinks a lot about his actions and those of others. He internalises what's going on around him. In a way that makes it easier for us. When I gave him the news about his supposed sister, something inside him broke. He's taken having his memories erased harder than Starsky, but he's still a thinking man and thinking men have scruples. I'd say he would certainly hunt his adversary, but whether he'd actually kill is another matter.'

Da Luca put down his cigar and scratched the side of his nose. 'I'm not accustomed to failure Mr Lake.'

'Neither am I Sir, but I am accustomed to getting my own way. I've discussed it with Dr Isaac and we think we have a plan.'

'A quick one I hope. Isla De Lucia de Catalina awaits our two subjects and you promised me some sport.'

Isaac coughed. 'I think I may be able to save the day. They leave the day after tomorrow, right?'

'Go on.'

'Ok well between now and then we use a little chemical encouragement to help things along.'

'You've tried that Isaac. The drug and the brainwashing have erased their memories, but it doesn't seem to have given us the desired effect.'

'No sir, you're right. But I have in mind a little chemical coercion of my own. Something that resides in us all. Something as natural and as fundamental as it gets, therefore it will be untraceable when the authorities recover their bodies.'

The man behind the desk leaned forward. 'Continue.'

'Between now and Thursday I give them shots. We'll tell the it's vitamins, minerals just to build them up. Testosterone is a wonderful thing and it'll make them so edgy, so pumped up and ready for a fight that they'd skin their own mothers alive.'

Da Luca grinned. 'Will it work?'

Isaac grinned back. 'Imagine that feeling when you want to do nothing more than punch the living daylights out of something? When your skin wants to crawl off your body? The feeling when you're about to waste someone and inherit their territory?'

'Uh huh.'

'Triple it. By the time I've given them their shots, their gonna feel like a bomb ready to explode. By the time they get to the island, believe me Sir, they'll kill anything that gets in their way.'

Da Luca grinned wolfishly. 'There are times when you redeem yourself Dr Isaac. Give them the shots and watch them closely but you have them on that island by Thursday evening or your contract will be um…..terminated.'

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

The small boat rocked quietly in the evening waves about a half a mile from the shore of the small private island. The sun, which had shone down on the island all day was going down now leaving long shadows across the land and glinting like liquid fire across the tips of the waves. Above a lone gull cried plaintively to her mate and as the skipper watched, a shoal of flying fish spread their silver fins and skipped across the sea like a rain of mercury.

It was a perfect late summer evening and one that should have been enjoyed with a lover on the white sands of the beach, champagne in hand. Instead, the chocolate curled man sat below decks in the cramped cabin of the boat dressed in cut off jean shorts and a plain dark blue tee shirt as he surveyed the weapons on the small table in front of him.

There had been a seed change in Ethan Quade over the past 48 hours. The happy-go-lucky man who'd woken in the hospital a month ago had been replaced by a snarling, argumentative and very dangerous individual intent on revenge against the man who had caused the death of his younger brother.

Dr Isaac's injections of "vitamins" had certainly made a difference and the good doctor was quite pleased with the results – so pleased that when he had said a final goodbye to Starsky/Quade he'd given instructions for the minders who'd accompanied Quade to the boat to be careful of what they said or how they said it. Quade had been getting steadily more jumpy in the past 24 hours and now he looked and felt ready to rip the head off anyone who got in his way.

'Why no gun?' Quade asked as he took the two black leather knife sheaths and fitted one to each forearm. He slipped the two shiny new knives into the holders and practiced drawing them a couple of times. They felt cumbersome and far slower than a gun, but a weapon was a weapon was a weapon and beggars couldn't be choosers. Besides, the way Quade felt, he would prefer to be up close and personal when the light went out in Hunt's eyes. He wanted to feel the death; to make it mean something. Quade wanted to be close enough to Hunt to hear that least breath ask for mercy…..and life. In short, a gun wouldn't really cut it. A gun was too long range and Quade would feel nothing of the exhilaration of having Hunt die at his feet.

'We had trouble getting permission for you to come to the island. One of the stipulations was no guns' one of the orderlies said cautiously.

'And tell me again how the Doc managed to get me and Hunt here at the same time.'

The orderly shrugged his shoulders. 'He didn't really say. He just said he felt for you, that you'd been a great patient and that after the bum wrap you'd had, he wanted to give you a head start in getting your life back in order. Turns out that Hunt is a friend of the guy who owns this island and he's gonna be here on vacation.'

'How lucky. How many people live here?'

'None, so far as we know. The owner sometimes sails out here for a slice of the Robinson Crusoe lifestyle, but it's only small. There are no hotels.'

Quade shrugged. 'Fine by me. It makes taking Hunt down all the easier – no witnesses. Are we ready?'

The orderlies nodded. 'We're about half a mile out but we daren't get any closer otherwise you may be spotted.'

'Uh huh. Best to go in quietly. We wouldn't want to disturb the wildlife, would we?'

There was a nervous laugh from the two big men. 'Are you sure you wanna do this? I mean, wouldn't it be easier to just um….well, get on with life?'

Quade stood suddenly and grabbed one of the big men by the throat. He squeezed just hard enough that the breath whistled through the man's throat in a small hiss and the eyes started to glaze over. It felt good. It felt as though Quade could push his hand into the sweating chest in front of him and rip out the still beating heart. He wanted to feel the hot, salty blood flow over his fist; wanted nothing more than to have the man fall at his feet. He squeezed a little harder and smiled as the man wheezed into his face.

'Wanna run that by me again?' Quade grunted.

The man in his grip managed a weak shake of his head and reluctantly Quade let go so that the orderly sank to his knees on the floor of the cabin, hand at his throat as he massaged the blossoming bruises. Quade stood impassively, his face a blank canvas.

'Lead the way' he said to the other man who backed up slightly and let the feral brunet take the steps up onto the deck. Quade looked critically at the island. There was a small white beach but to reach it he would have to cross the breakers washing against a small reef. With critical eyes Quade plotted his approach.

The curly haired man stood on the gunwales of the boat and turned, perfectly balanced on sneakered feet. 'Tell the Doc thanks' he said curtly. He flipped a small salute, took a deep breath and launched himself from the side of the boat in a perfect shallow dive. Aboard the boat, the two men and the skipper let out a collective sigh of relief. The tension on the small craft had been almost palpable and now that their guest was gone they could finally relax. The skipper sat down in the small wheelhouse and turned in his chair to look at the other two men.

'Are we running a book on who will kill who?' he asked, picking his teeth.

'Hunt was as pumped as Quade when I last saw him. If anything he was worse. I wouldn't like to run odds on who'd win in a fight. I certainly wouldn't wanna be in the middle of them' the orderly with the bruised neck mumbled.

'Did they give Hunt a gun?'

'No. Knife. But a big one in a sheath down his spine. That's his only weapon but it has reach over Quade's smaller knives.'

'Quade can thrown 'em.'

'So can Hunt, and I wouldn't want to get on the pointed end of that mother. It's gonna be interesting. How long did Mr Lake say we had to wait?'

'He said to go around to the opposite side of the island. The other boat is dropping Hunt at the jetty then leaving. We're to anchor out in the bay and wait. If we don't see anything in two days, we're to go back in and finish it.'

'And you really want to go back onto that island with the two of them?'

Orderly #1 grinned and took a bundle from a locker in the small cabin. He unrolled the oiled cloth and dumped a Firestar semi-automatic onto the table, grinning. 'I think this has a bit more reach than a knife. We'll have fun with 'em once they've had fun with each other huh?'


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

On another part of the island, another small luxury craft was pulling into the bay. The sleek white lines of the cruiser looked at home amongst the white sand and palm fringes of the small bay and the crew of two tried to ignore their passengers who were deep in conversation on the deck.

Mr Lake/O'Malley was looking down at an object on the deck of the boat. Lovingly he picked it up and held the blade to the light so that the evening sun reflected off of the silver, making lights dance over the deck of the boat. He gently touched the edge of the blade with his thumb feeling the metal honed to perfection. This was a blade to be proud of and he slipped it back into the sheath and handed it to Hutch/Hunt.

'A present from the guys at station 33. Phil told me to tell you "go for it".'

Hunt looked up, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun. 'Phil?'

'I'm sorry. It's so good to see you again I keep forgetting that you don't have all your memories. Phil was your number 3 on the engine. He felt it real hard when your sister was killed.'

'Well tell …. Phil….that I'll not let him down. Or my sister. I need to do this and I can't thank you enough for setting this up.'

Lake/O'Malley shrugged. 'It's the least I can do. My friend who owns the island says it's your for the duration. His only stipulation was that there be no guns. He didn't want the noise of gunshots attracting the cops to the place.'

The blond man nodded and stood, perfectly balanced on the rocking boat. Wearing black cut off shorts and a green shirt open at the front he showed the fading bruises across his abdomen as he reached up and slipped his arms through the knife sheath. The blade was about four inches longer than legal, making it about eight inches in all and the sheath fit down the centre of his spine perfectly, the leather straps fitting under his arms. Carefully Hunt adjusted the straps, wriggled his shoulders to get the feel of the thing and reached up and behind him to grab the hilt of the blade. He pulled it clear of the sheath and sliced it down through the air. It felt good and he grunted.

'I think I can handle not having a gun.'

Lake/O'Malley smiled back. 'That's my boy. You're a real fuckin' boy scout! Now all you need is to go and find Quade. Make it count Ray. Make every second count huh?'

'I wanna put my hand around his throat and watch his eyes pop. I wanna hear him beg me for mercy and then I want him to beg some more. I need to do this…..for my sister and for my sanity.'

Lake/O'Malley stood up and shook the other man's hand. 'Then get to it. There aint no time like the present and from what my friend said, Quade is likely to be here already. Just be careful huh? I lost ya once man. I don't wanna go back and explain to the guys again. Besides I couldn't afford another memorial service.'

'You had a memorial service? For me?'

'No for Mickey Mouse! Course for you, ya moron' Lake/O'Malley said grinning and taking no account of his own advice to his other men. In a second Hunt's bonhomie had broken and the words sliced into him. No-one called Ray Hunt a moron and lived.

Without thinking about his actions, Hunt drove Lake/O'Malley to the deck of the boat, straddling the man and holding the blade of the huge knife to Lake's throat.

'Mind your fuckin' language' Hunt snarled. His face registered anger and yet his eyes showed nothing but calm. It was the icy, cold, empty calm that showed when the owner of the body had gone walkabout. No-one was home behind those eyes except vengeance and anger – a deadly combination.

Lake/O'Malley was taken off guard and was suddenly looking up into the eyes of the monster he'd helped to create. He licked dry lips and tried to force them into a comforting smile but instead they quivered in fear. 'Hey bro. It's me. It's your Pal. Don't take this out on me, there's a fuckin' rapist on that island that deserves your attention. Go take it out on him huh? Ray? Are you listening to me?'

Slowly the voice penetrated the blond's thoughts and he took the flat blade of the knife away from the smaller man's throat. It had felt so good and so right. It had felt like he held Lake/O'Malley's life in his hands and he had the power to decide whether his adversary lived or died. The feeling both empowered hunt and at the same time terrified him. He was certain, to the core of his being that he'd never had those feelings before and they scared him despite the anger flowing through his veins. Like a marionette drawn up by strings Hunt got up off his knees and allowed Lake/O'Malley to get up too. Hunt neither apologised nor looked at the other man, but whether that was from anger or something else, Hunt didn't want to analyse. Instead, he sheathed the knife, grabbed a bag he'd prepared and stepped off the boat and onto the jetty.

'Tell the boys I'll be back at the station when the jobs done' Hunt said as he scanned the horizon of the island.

'Sure thing. We'll come back to the jetty each evening at 6. We'll wait half an hour and then go, with or without you. Clear?'

Hunt shrugged. 'Clear.' Without a backwards glance, the blond shouldered his bag, settled the sheath against his spine and walked away from the small wooden jetty towards the tree lined head of the beach.

It was growing dark as he walked and the lengthening shadows accentuated the dips and hollows in the sand. Cicadas pierced the evening air with their harsh calls and the evening breeze whispered through the palm fronds and set up competition with the waves sighing against the shore. On a different night than this Hunt felt he would have enjoyed the peace and solitude of the island. Something deep down inside him, something he hadn't acknowledged whilst he'd been in the hospital told him that in his previous life he'd enjoyed the outdoors. Maybe that made sense. O'Malley said he came from Seattle – from the coast. Did that mean he was naturally on outdoors kind of person?

Whatever it did mean, Hunt didn't need to be an Eagle Scout to know that first order of business would be to find a shelter and get some sleep. Doc Isaac had been right when he'd told Hunt that his body hadn't finished healing yet; that really he shouldn't be doing anything like this until he'd had at least another two weeks of recovery. Now Hunt's body ached. His ribs felt as though they'd healed closed around his lungs so that he breathed heavily as he walked through the powder soft sand. The hours on the treadmill in the gym hadn't readied him for this and he needed to rest. Today had been a big day and if he was going to survive and get back to his former life, he was going to need to rest up.

As the blond man pushed on further into the interior of the island, his eyes cast about him. The place was rich in palm trees and one of those tall trees had recently fallen, it's trunk now at a drunken angle close to the ground.

Hunt checked it for critters and found none. Without analysing his actions, he set to ripping the palm fronds from the top of the tree and then he placed them along the trunk making a rudimentary shelter for himself. It took a good hour of work to create an area big enough for him to lie under, and another half an hour to gather enough dried leaves to put down over the sand as a sleeping platform. Hot, tired and in pain, Hunt made one final effort to gather dry kindling, took a flint and steel from a small box in his bag and lit a small fire in front of the shelter. With warmth and a bed beneath him, the blond sat for a while in the dark, looking deep into the flames of the fire. It felt right to be out here. It felt right to be looking for the guy who's raped his sister. It even felt right that he was bringing justice to the scenario but even as Hunt stared into the flickering fire, a tiny doubt crept up on him. Justice was one thing, but killing?

The blond man reached into his bag and brought out a power bar and a small metal box that Isaac had given him. The doctor had warned him he'd be stiff and sore and had said he'd prepared a shot of something to help him through that first night. Now Hunt stared at the needle and shivered. He hated them; hated needles and shots and had no idea where that feeling came from. For a long moment he wondered whether just to ignore the meds. Sure, he felt sore and aching, but that was to be expected, right? But would he be in good enough shape to hunt Quade tomorrow? That was the sixty four million dollar question. That's what all this was about and he had only one chance. Without further thought, Hunt bared his upper arm, took the top off the syringe with his teeth and plunged the needle into his muscle, driving the plunger home with a sigh. He immediately felt better. Whatever was in the shot flowed though his veins like molton metal. He felt tired but once again his resolve had hardened and he could feel the righteous anger surging towards the surface again.

He was going to do this. He was going to find Quade and make him pay….and he may just stretch out the experience and have a little fun at the slimy rapists expense first.

With those thoughts warming him, Hunt settled down under his palm frond shelter. He took off the spine sheath and placed the knife where he could easily reach it. He pillowed his head on the bag he carried, closed his eyes and within seconds sleep overcame him and he gave his body over to relaxation and dreams.

On the other side of the island, Quade stumbled ashore and sank to his knees on the white sandy beach. He'd been swimming for over an hour and he was exhausted, cold and wracked with pains in his chest. Slowly he tried to take deep breaths but the pains in the fourth rib doubled him over and he vomited sea water onto the sand in front of him before crawling away further up the beach and into the shelter of the trees.

It had been a difficult swim. There was a rip tide and he'd swum against it for almost an hour without getting very far at all. Eventually he saw the breakers across the small reef ahead of him and made another determined effort to swim for the shore.

Quade had no idea that the coral reef was so close to the surface that as he swam over it the coral scraped at his chest and arms. Blood flowed and the sea water bit at his cuts but the pain was what spurred him on. With every stroke of his leaden arms he imagined ploughing his fist into Ray Hunt's face. The thought of revenge for his poor dead baby brother drove the curly haired man on and finally, having crossed the reef, he allowed the smaller waves to push him into the beach.

Those last few yards he swam half heartedly. The strength he'd garnered in the gym all those hours ago had been leached away by the journey to the island and now all he wanted was to lie down somewhere that didn't rock, close his eyes, and sleep.

With his stomach feeling raw and with his arms and legs almost too tired to answer his commands, Quade reached for small metal box Isaac had given him. He recalled the words the doctor had given him before he'd set off from the hospital that morning.

'Take this tonight Ethan. It's the last of your vitamin shots and I added some pain killer too. You're going to need all your strength when you find your target so just take the shot before you sleep.'

'I'm no medic. I can't give myself a shot Doc.'

'Just aim for the muscle in your upper arm. It's easy. Push the needle in draw the plunger back and so long as there's no blood entering the barrel you're clear to inject.'

Quade did just that. He pushed the needle into his arm with a hiss, pulled back and then depressed the plunger all the way. Whatever was in the shot was powerful. Immediately he felt better, stronger, more powerful and his resolve returned full force.

The dark haired man struggled to his feet, walked a few yards into the trees, found a hollow in the sand and sank down into it. He glanced around making sure he wouldn't be spotted too easily and then, with his curly head pillowed in the crook of his arm and his left hand resting on the hilt of one of the knives, Ethan Quade closed his eyes and allowed sleep to wash over him in a great, dark tide.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

It was the cold of the morning and the sounds of the waves whispering on the beach that awoke Ethan Quade. He'd slept the sleep of the dead throughout the night although his dreams had been confusing and mixed. Once again he was dreaming of a blond haired man. The man had no face and no name but it seemed to Quade as though he'd known this man for a very long time. The dream was set on an island very like this one. Disturbingly the island was festooned with shrunken heads and voodoo symbols and occasionally a black man's face would loom out of the dark and laugh at him as he writhed on the ground. By the time Quade awoke he felt spooked and his first action as his eyes opened was to reach for the knife he'd placed under his bag the previous night.

Now, as he moved Quade realised that the swim the previous day had not just tired him out. His chest was on fire and as he moved his arm that fourth rib, the one Doctor Isaac had worried about, felt as though it were going to poke through his chest at any moment. Carefully the curly haired man stretched, easing the kinks from his muscles and started some deep breathing exercises to ease his pains. His ankle was also swollen again although the break had healed well and there was a warmth to Quade's back, chest and legs where the coral had cut him up. The wounds had turned an angry red despite his emersion in the healing sea water but Quade decided he could ignore the cuts and abrasions. They were the least of his worries now.

His stomach rumbled loudly and reminded the castaway that he was hungry. He'd felt so pumped up the previous day that he hadn't eaten at all and now he felt light headed and empty. Reaching into the bag he'd brought with him, Quade pulled out a granola bar. For some inexplicable reason a list of ingredients ran through his head; lecithin, sea kelp, black strap molasses. None of those things appeared on the list of contents on the pre-wrapped pack and the brunet shook his head. _You're losin' it boy, you're losin' it!_

As he munched on the bar, Quade looked around him. Through the palm trunks he could see the white sand beach he'd swum to yesterday. The sandy ground extended to where he was sitting now and then, as he looked behind him the ground became grassy and rose slightly in an apology for a hill. Calling on the skills he thought he should have had as a soldier, Quade considered his next moves.

Primary target was Ray Hunt. Isaac had assured him that Hunt would be on the island and Quade had no reason to doubt that. With nothing to go on, it would be a game of stealth. It was a shame he didn't have a gun. A gun would have made him feel safer; more secure and yet looking down at the sheaths strapped to his forearms, Quade seemed just as happy with the knives. Was he used to hand to hand combat? Where had he learned to fight with knives? Did he do that in the Army? So many questions ran through his head and yet he had no time to seek answers. They would come later. Right now he needed to be on the move. Staying in one spot was dangerous. Moving silently through the undergrowth was the right thing to do and as though following his own advice, Quade stowed the wrapper from the granola bar into his bag, shouldered it and looked around at his temporary bedroom. The depression he'd slept in showed a body shaped hollow and he scuffed the sand up with the side of his sneaker, hiding the evidence that he'd ever been there. Satisfied he'd covered his tracks, and walking only on the tussocky grass to avoid footprints, Ethan Quade started to make his way through the trees in search of his quarry.

On the far side of the island, the cool of the dawn had also woken Ray Hunt from his dreams. He'd spent a toasty night beneath his palm frond shelter and the embers of his fire still glowed red. Carefully the blond man rose, stretched his long legs and turned his attention to the fire. His pack included a tin cup and a tiny packet of coffee along with one bottle of fresh water. Hunt leaned low over the remains of the fire and blew gently, coaxing the ashes back into life. He didn't question how he knew what to do. He worked calmly, coldly, methodically and with the ease born of practice. A few minutes work later and a spark blazed into life, caught against the kindling and produced a small flame. Carefully Hunt added small twigs in a pyramid shape and when there was a gentle blaze, he balanced the tin cup on top of the fire, added water and sat back to wait for it to heat. Five minutes later he added the coffee granules, used his tee shirt to pull the piping hot cup from the fire and carefully sipped appreciatively at the steaming brew.

As he squatted by the fire, Hunt considered his options. Half of the blond man wanted to find Quade, kill him and then get on with his life. The other half wanted some fun – wanted to hunt Quade down and make the other man suffer a little before extracting his retribution. So what to do?

O'Malley had asked him what he wanted to pack for his trip to the island. Hunt had considered carefully. For some reason he seemed at home thinking about survival techniques and the prospect of a hunt. He had quickly made a list and given it to O'Malley who'd told him he would see what he could do to get everything together. Now Hunt looked at his carefully packed bag. He took out each item in turn and examined it before placing it down on the ground in front of him. A small shovel with a detachable handle; a tin with a flint and sparker; the tin cup; bottle of water now half gone; a length of thin but strong rope and a change of shirt. Just because he was on an island he didn't' need to compromise his comfort too much!

Carefully Hunt repacked his bag. He drained the last of the coffee from his cup, packed that also and stood up. The sheath with the long knife was the next thing and the blond man fastened the straps back around his shoulders. It felt snug and the knife was a comforting weight down his back. He wiggled his shoulders a little to get the weapon bedded in and then scuffed sand over the small fire, extinguishing the flames. He scattered the ashes and the burned wood, took a final look around his campsite and nodded to himself. The shelter – should anyone find it – was a giveaway that someone had camped there, but it had taken a while to construct and was too valuable to dismantle. If he had to stay another night, it would be useful once again. He would take the chance that Quade would stumble across it – it was more energy effective to leave it alone than to start taking it apart.

Looking at the lay of the land, Hunt turned his back on his shelter and headed inland. The ground rose slightly and he guessed that in the middle of the small island there may be a hill from which he could survey the whole area. From that, he could decide how and where to take out Quade, make it back to the jetty and get the hell out of there back to his life once and for all.

Hunt started his trek. He walked slowly but with purpose, his whole mind concentrated on his quarry and how to achieve his goal. As he walked, he examined the ground and the surrounding area for any clues that there was another person on the island. It wasn't long before he got his first one.

The island was heavily wooded, the palm trees on the beach giving way to taller, denser vegetation the further away from the sand he walked. The ground cover changed too and bindweed and other plants littered the small pathway that seemed to have been used by animals. Rats were feral on these small islands, but rats didn't leave imprints of shoes on the ground.

Carefully Hunt knelt and examined the print. It was man-sized and looked as though it had been made by a sneaker or some soft kind of shoe. Obviously someone had come this way and not too long ago. There were no particles of sand or debris in the depressions of the print. That denoted that not too much time had elapsed since it had been formed.

The blond man looked around him. There was no sound and no breeze in between the tall trees. It was hot and humid and sweat ran annoyingly beneath the sheath of the big knife at his back. No birds sang, which meant that someone had passed this way recently and this seemed to be the only path up to the brow of the rise.

Hunt stood, making his decision. The art of good survival was not to be too quick to use up your reserves of energy. If he could allow Quade to come to him instead of the other way around, then hunt would have conserved his own energy for the kill. An idea formed in the flaxen head and Hunt looked critically at the lie of the land.

The path was narrow and undulating. Just ahead of him, the path dipped down into a hollow with a slight climb out of the other side. This he could use to his advantage and so long as he was quiet in his work, the trap might just work. Checking around him once more, Hunt took out the shovel from his bag, attached the handle and started to dig where the hollow reached its deepest part. The work was hard and within minutes the blond man was sweating profusely, but he knew time was not on his side and he needed to complete his work.

Hunt continued to dig solidly until he had a hole in the ground big enough the hold a body. The lie of the land meant he didn't need to dig too deeply for his purposes and he carefully crawled out of the hole and cast around for his next target.

A tall tree opposite provided what he needed and Hunt took the large knife from its sheath and hacked off one of the lower branches. It was about two feet long and the end he hones into a sharp point, testing it with his hands to see how resilient it was. Apparently satisfied with his weapon, the blond man lowered it into the hole he'd dug and jammed it into the bottom of the sandy soil so that the point reared up from the centre of the hole. Finally Hunt cut down some of the more accessible palm fronds and laid them over the top of the hole. With the natural dip in the ground, and the area he'd just dug, the hole was maybe four feet deep – more than enough he hoped, for what he had in mind. Vegetation in place no-one would know it was there as the palm fronds disguised it from all but the most detailed scrutiny. Hunt stood back and admired his handiwork critically.

The trap was set and it had taken a little over two hours of work. Now all he needed to do was find Quade and lure him back to this spot and the man would be, as they said in the novels, "toast".


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

The sun was up high in the sky by the time Ethan Quade had reached the crest of the hill in the interior of the island. It had taken him a while to get there. The vegetation he'd encountered had been dense and the heat and the humidity had sapped at his energy. Twice during the morning he'd stopped and sat in the shade at the base of a tree to recover his breath and kneed at the tight muscles in his chest. Once, he'd also taken off his sneaker so that he could properly massage the ankle that had been broken in the car crash. That had proved a big mistake! The massage had felt divine and Quade had luxuriated in the touch but when it came to putting the footwear back on…. The ankle had swollen and so had some of the upper part of his foot. Jamming it back into his sneaker was like attempting to enter purgatory and the curly haired man cursed long and hard until he had the shoe in place and laced loosely around his foot.

Quade had to admit to himself that he was not in the best shape. Maybe healing from two big accidents – the bomb blast ihe'd been told he'd survived n 'Nam and the car accident just over a month ago was too much for his body to take. After this – after he'd killed Hunt and moved on in his life Quade promised himself he'd take it easy, maybe move down to Mexico, find a sweet little seniorita and a settle down on a ranch. Maybe he'd win a fortune on a blackjack table; maybe he'd just find the brunette with the twinkling eyes who haunted his dreams.

The tall man sighed. Maybe. Such a small word that hid so many hopes. Quade shook himself and snickered. Was he getting maudlin? Surely not. Big bad Ethan Quade, on the hunt for revenge and he was brooding about a dream girl with no name?

Time to move on and Quade pushed himself to his feet against the base of the tree and looked around him. The best offence is a good defence. Some unknown, unremembered voice had once told him that. Or had he read it in a book? And did it really matter? The advice seemed sound and for the fourth time in as many hours the brunet examined the sheaths strapped to his forearms and tried once again to flex his wrists so that the knives flicked out making the hilts easier to grab. The hard brown leather chaffed at his skin, but the bright silver glint of the sun on the metal blades cheered him, giving him a warm, safe feeling that he wrapped around his body like a security blanket.

Satisfied he was as well armed as he was ever likely to be on the island, Quade once again bent down and scuffed over the grass he'd been sitting on. Something in his mind – something indefinable but still present made him aware of jungle craft, or at least the ability to go undetected. Was that too a legacy of his time in the Army? It wasn't that he felt at home surrounded by trees and the like – if anyone had asked him he'd have said he was a city boy without a doubt – but he did seem instinctively to know how to deal with being alone.

Self reliant. Why was that? What had gone on in his unremembered life that had made him that way?

Quade's head started to ache. Too many thoughts running through them and at the back of it all a niggling doubt telling him that something about this whole set up wasn't right. Yeah, sure he wanted Hunt dead. The "memory" of his baby brother Chris' untimely death weighed heavy on his mind, but at the same time, Quade had a niggling doubt about just how easy it had been for Doctor Isaac to find Chris' killer and have him on the island ready for the kill. Was it good luck, or good management? Ethan trusted the doctor. He had no reason not to, but on the other hand, being a trained soldier, he brought questions to every scenario and right now, he was beginning to question a little too much.

Squaring his shoulders, Quade set off once again through the trees. He could see his target now. The crest of the hill was a small clearing, the earth bare and sandy and there, large as life was the man he'd been hunting. Raymond Hunt. Murderer extraordinaire. And he was standing large as life in front of the brunet looking out over the tree covered island.

Quade stopped and pulled himself back into the shadows. For a long moment he pressed his back against the tree and stared at the other man, sizing him up. If he'd had a gun he'd have had a straight head shot and he would have been able to take out Hunt in a second. Pity. And yet something made Quade want to get closer to fight. There was just something making him want to get hands on that tanned torso and watch as the light went out behind those eyes. Almost casually Quade ran his fingers over the knife and with his left hand he drew the right hand knife from its sheath, testing and weighing the blade in his hand. He let his breath out of his body until nothing remained but deadly stillness – and the desire for blood.

Up ahead Hunt seemed oblivious to his impending death. Quade was sure that so far he hadn't been seen and to make sure that that continued he dropped to his knees and crawled forwards, slinking across the dirt like a panther until he was less than 20 yards away from the other blond man. Quietly Quade rose to his knees and wiped the dirt from his hands, running his left hand down the front of his shorts to clean off any last residue of grass and sweat. He hefted the knife in his hand. It felt good, the weight reassuring and the blade deadly. Swiftly he tossed the knife into the air, reversing it so that he caught the silver blade deftly, ready to throw.

Like a puppet brought upright on strings Quade got to his feet, still hugging the shade of the tree at his back. There were still enough tree trunks on front of him that he was covered by dappled shade – just another shape amongst the vegetation. Ahead, Hunt was standing tall, his hand up to his eyes as he turned a full 360 degrees. Hunt's flaw that he was looking further out, towards the horizon and not just a few yards away. Too damned sure for his own good Quade thought and the cocksureness of the other man irked him and made him want to hurt Hunt all the more.

As the blond turned his back once more to complete his circuit, Quade made his move and shot out from the shelter of the trees, dropping to his knee on the edge of the clearing and launching the knife at Hunt's back.

Something alerted the blond. The blur of movement made the hair stand up on the back of his neck and he started to turn, but as he did so, something caught him low down on his calf and he staggered, falling to his knee as he looked in surprise at the knife sticking obscenely out from his calf muscle. The pain didn't come immediately but Hunt reacted like a professional. Never stopping to take the knife out of the wound, he rose on his one good leg just in time to be hit in the body full force by a curly headed missile.

Quade watched his blade embed itself in his quarry's leg and cursed. His aim had been off by a foot, but it had still found flesh and the wound was bound to hurt. The brunet had wanted the fight to be up close and personal and now, with Hunt temporarily stunned, Quade pressed home the advantage and ran at his target full tilt.

At the last moment Hunt turned and with a skill born of practice he faced Quade, dropping onto his back as the curly haired man reached for him. Quade's own momentum carried him forwards as Hunt took a hold of Quade's arms, placed a foot in his stomach and rolled him over his head.

Both men came to their feet with surprising speed and once again Quade launched himself at Hunt, reaching out for the blond's neck. This time, with the knife still in his calf, Hunt wasn't quite quick enough. He felt strong hands circle his neck and he grabbed for Quade's wrists trying to pull the death grip away. The world started to sparkle around the edges as Quade squeezed as hard as he could, watching the crystal blue eyes in front of him start to tear and bulge. At the same time Hunt looked down to the open front of Quade's shirt and saw the still dark bruises across his chest.

Altering his target was one thing, taking his hands away from those that were trying to strangle him was something else. With a supreme effort, Hunt lowered his hands and while he still had some strength remaining he made the side of his hand into a blade and chopped at Quade's side with as much force as he could muster.

The effect was instantaneous. Quade's hands fell away from Hunt's neck as the slightly smaller man collapsed onto his knees in a wheeze of breath. Quade's arms wrapped instinctively around his damaged chest, that fourth rib having finally given up the unequal struggle to heal and spat onto the ground, but his eyes never left the tall blond. The gaze didn't save him. The breath was knocked from the brunet's body by the blow and as he leaned over to try to breathe a roundhouse kick took him full force in the head, knocking him to the ground. For a moment stars shone in Ethan Quade's head and he found himself staring at the trees until he could managed another breath.

Hunt knew he'd hurt his adversary but the wound on his leg was hurting like hell and he knew Quade was getting weaker. With a barely suppressed yip of pain Hunt pulled the blade of the knife from his flesh and pocketed it. Ignoring the pain and the trickle of blood making its way down his leg Hunt knew he had the brunet on the run and now that he had the upper hand he was like a cat playing with a mouse. Something in Hunt's mind snapped. He wanted fun. He wanted to make this last. He wanted Quade to suffer just like Hunt's sister had suffered before she died. There was no question of compassion in Hunt's heart, just a cold, hard merciless lust for revenge. He looked down at the man on the ground. Quade looked back at him and started to get to his feet.

'Fuckin' pervert. Wanna fight? Come an' get it' Hunt snarled at the brunet and set off down the path he'd used to get to the crest of the hill at a moderately fast pace – just fast enough to give Quade the impression that he'd be able to catch up.

Quade got to his feet, nursing his re-broken rib and started after Hunt. If that drug dealer wanted a fight, then Quade wasn't going to disappoint him. Ignoring the pain in his ankle and the gnawing ache in his chest and head, Quade set off down the hill after his rival, limping as fast as he could over the uneven ground. The taste of the fight had spurred him on and the feel of the blond man's neck between his hands had been like a sweet, sweet wine. The look in Hunt's eyes as he'd been so close to death was the cherry on the cake and now Quade wanted only to finish what he'd started.

Ahead he could see the taller man flitting sure footedly through the trees like quicksilver. One minute his body was there, the next minute it had gone, blending in with the shadows and yet he seemed to be following the track of a small path down the hill. The smoother dirt of the path made the going easier and for a second Quade relaxed. Hunt had obviously underestimated him and now he was going to teach the blond the lesson of his life.

The blood thundered in Quade's ears and his skin felt so antsy he was sure it would crawl off of his body and go after Hunt on its own.

A little further down the path Hunt neatly side stepped off the path and stood, arms outstretched as he waited for Quade. This was it. This was what he'd prepared for and now he was going to savour the moment. The brunet came hurtling around the corner and skittered to a halt about five feet away from Hunt. The blond twitched his fingers in an invitation to come closer.

'Ya scared?' he asked coldly.

'Of a chicken livered bastard like you? Nah. Just bored' Quade answered and in truth that was almost how he felt, although underlying it all was the need to get this over with so that he could lie down and see to his injuries.

'Bored huh? Well come an' get me. We can finish it here and now' Hunt called.

'T'riffic' Quade snapped and took a step forwards. The word – that single word brought Hunt up short. There was something about it he couldn't define and yet…

Too late for thoughts. As Quade took that last step forwards – as he was breaking into a charge at Hunt – the ground slipped from under his feet and the light covering of palm fronds over the pit Hunt had spent time digging give way so that the ground seemed to open up and swallow the brunet. Quade had only a moment to register surprise before he felt himself falling and the bottom of the pit came up quickly to catch his body unawares.

There was a moment of sickening clarity as Quade realised what was happening and he barely had time to let out a scream of rage before the ground came up to hit him. For a second there was silence. Quade lay crumpled, like a broken doll in the hole and his last thought as blackness overtook him was that something not very pleasant was jabbing into his private parts and seemed to be wantinh to come out the other side.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 - Apologies, people, for this chapter. I do you hope you have strong stomachs!**

The salty tang of sea air was the first thing that alerted Ethan Quade to the fact that he wasn't at home in his own bed – that and the fact that just about every part of his body hurt to some degree. He couldn't recall feeling this bad in…. well he didn't know how long. Loss of memory will disorientate a person in oh so many small ways. Suffice it to say he couldn't remember feeling this bad since he'd woken up in the hospital over a month ago. Then he'd had nice clean white sheets, drugs galore and pretty nurses to look after him and tend to his wounds.

Wounds.

That one word brought Quade's mind into focus. He must have a hell of a lot of them right now. His ribs and especially that damned fourth rib were protesting the fact that he had to breathe. They gave him a dull persistent ache and then, just for variety hit him with a high, pinching pain that left him panting. That set off the ache in his head even more and stopped him from shaking his head to clear it.

Further out in his body, the brunet realised that he could no longer move his arms and for a moment he wondered if he was still in the pit and somehow had become paralysed. Out of sheer curiosity tinged with a smidgeon of fear, he tried to twitch his fingers and discovered that far from being paralysed, his arms were secured high above his head, putting further tension on his already aching chest. The realisation of the position of his arms also caused the brunet to focus on the other parts of his body. He was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him and his back, which hurt almost as much as his chest was resting back against something hard and rough – tree?

Movement in front of him made the bound man open his eyes finally and his gaze fell upon his arch enemy squatting down on the ground in front of him. Hunt seemed intent on doing something at the centre of Quade's body and the brunet looked down, trying to stifle the groan that sprang to his lips. The sight took away his breath and he closed his eyes fast, breathing rapidly so much that he was in danger of hyperventilating.

The sight brought the pain.

The front of his cut off shorts was drenched in blood. The zipper on his shorts had been pulled down and his family jewels were exposed to the air, his cock lying bloody and limp on the red soaked material. From the centre of his body, sticking up sickeningly from his scrotum was a large and equally bloody shard of wood. Hunt was examining it carefully and at the sounds from the bound man he looked up into pain clouded but angry indigo blue eyes.

Something welled up inside Quade's chest. The pain, the blood and the sight of that most sensitive part of his anatomy speared by a huge splinter was too much for the damaged man and he lurched sideways as much as he could against his bonds and threw up the meagre contents of his stomach onto the ground, aiming at Hunt. The blond man swore and pushed himself backwards but not fast enough to avoid the vomit splattering against his shoes. Hunt stood up and backhanded Quade across the face hard, leaving a fresh and bloody cut just beneath Quade's right eye. A small trickle of blood started to make its way down the smaller man's face and he licked at it, his eyes never leaving Hunt's face.

The brunet grunted and spat blood onto the ground. 'That the best you got?' Quade panted, looking up at his adversary silhouetted against the bright sunshine.

'Shuddup pervert' Hunt snarled. 'Or do you enjoy pain?'

'I'll tell you when I feel some.'

'That can be arranged.' Hunt squatted down again, careful to avoid the pool of vomit and looked Quade in the eyes. Quade returned the gaze defiantly, determined some way to get free and finish what he'd started. Slowly, and with the utmost care, Hunt reached down and touched the splinter sticking out of the front of Quade's pants. A shiver ran through his body as he saw the ghost of fear run behind Quade's eyes although they never wavered from returning his gaze.

Fine, if that was how the bastard wanted it! He took a hold of the splinter and waggled it slowly from side to side.

The effect was instant. Quade's eyes bulged and his face drained of colour. Muscles stood out in cords on the bound man's arms and his whole body lifted off the ground as he tried to shy away from the terrible pain. Quade felt as though the world were being ripped from the centre of his body and although he hated himself for his weakness, he screamed out into the trees an animalistic cry that ended in a grunt as his head fell forwards onto his chest.

Hunt let go of the splinter. The effect had been more dramatic than even he had hoped for and now he'd got his wish. He had Quade at his mercy and he could make the curly headed man suffer just as Quade had made his sister suffer before he killed her. Grabbing a handful of sweat soaked curls, Hunt yanked the smaller man's head back. Quade's eyes opened blankly fluttered and focussed. Hate shone behind them.

'Was that enough?' Hunt asked coldly.

Quade panted roughly, the breath whistling through his throat. His jaw muscles worked as though he was trying to bring his body back under control and then he gave the smallest of smiles. 'Yeah……hurts.'

'Want some more?' Hunt asked, although truthfully he didn't know if he could do that again. He had longed for this moment. He'd dreamed of it; of having Quade tied at his feet so that he, Hunt could reign down retribution on his sister's rapist and killer. He'd dreamed of what he'd do to Quade. Every waking moment since O'Malley had told him they'd found Quade had been filled with designs to make Quade hurt as much as possible. It wasn't enough to merely kill the man. Hunt had wanted him to suffer before the slowest death he could think of. The fact that the splinter had pierced the organ that had caused his sister's downfall seemed somehow fitting.

So why was he hesitating? What was it that stopped him from twisting that splinter again and watching Quade's body dance at the end of his bonds? Hunt couldn't identify what he was feeling but those few words – yeah, hurts – held a profound meaning for the blond. For one second he had a mental picture of an alleyway strewn with garbage. An iron fire escape. A stone step. He could almost feel a head buried in his chest and a pain roughened voice mumbling. 'Hurts….oh god it hurts.'

Hunt withdrew his hand from Quade's body as though he would be burned if he touched it again. He struggled to deal with the flashback. What was it about this man? He'd never met him before. He'd cultivated a healthy hate for him since he'd been told what Quade had done to his sister and yet now he felt sick to his stomach that he'd hurt him so badly.

Quade took advantage of the brief reprieve. 'Wha's a matter? No zest for the job?'

'Shuddup, or do you want a bruise on the other side of your face to make a matching pair.'

'It don't look like you got the stomach for it ya yellow bellied bastard' Quade spat out. 'You're no good without a pack of dope in your back pocket.'

Hunt looked up quickly. 'Dope? What're ya talkin' about? I don't do dope.'

'Sure. Ok, try speed, horse, one of the others.'

Hunt sat back on his heels wondering what the curly haired man was talking about. 'You don't even know me.'

'My brother did.'

'Brother? Who's your brother?'

Quade tried to move, winced and glared once again at his attacker. 'Chris? Chris Quade. The guy you helped put in jail where he died after bein' raped till he bled to death.'

This time Hunt's fist balled and drew back but something stopped him from landing the blow. 'I have no idea what you're talkin' about. I don't know no addict and I didn't know about you till a few days ago. Right when I found out what you did to my sister.' As he said it, something seemed odd and yet at the same time right. He was doing this to revenge his sister – the one who Quade had raped and left to die. His sister….. God he couldn't even remember her face and yet the burning urge for revenge was so strong in him that it overwrote any kind of sensible thought.

Quade too was pausing but in Quade's mind he was just waiting for the moment when he could get free and finish what he'd started. Ignoring the pains in his body the brunet inched his feet further around so that they lay closer to Hunt's legs. Hunt seemed not to notice, his mind seemed elsewhere and on a completely different planet. Without taking his eyes from Hunt's face Quade inched closer and closer to his target. The movements hurt, especially in the centre of his body and he concentrated on not making pain noises in his throat.

Still trying to get his thoughts into some kind of order, carelessly Hunt wasn't watching Quade. Maybe he was content that the curly haired man was so badly hurt and so well tied that he wasn't going anywhere. Maybe he was just trying to make some sense of the situation he found himself in. Maybe….just maybe he was beginning to question what he was doing here.

Hunt grunted and started to turn on his heels back towards his captive. Several things happened at the same time. Hunt half turned and in doing so his knees parted giving Quade the target he'd been looking for. Despite the pain burning through his body, Quade gathered all his strength and aimed a kick at the centre of Hunt's body. His sneakered foot connected although there wasn't as much power behind the blow as Quade would have liked. The effect was instantaneous. Hunt gave a strangled scream and grabbed at his balls, his face reddening. He fell backwards but was too far away for Quade to land another kick. Hunt rolled onto his back and continued to hold the centre of his body as the breath wheezed from between his teeth and seconds later he came to his knees, his face red and his eyes blurry with tears of pain.

Quade watched his adversary roll in pain with some satisfaction but as Hunt recovered and the brunet saw the look on his captor's face he suddenly realised he may well have made a big mistake. Hunt launched himself at Quade straddling his legs, his hands reaching instinctively for Quade's neck. He reached it and his hands closed over the jugular, eyes inches away from Quade's face, beads of sweat raising on his upper lip.

Quade closed his eyes. He'd lost, he knew he had and now he was going to have Hunt's face as the last thing he ever saw on earth. The brunet closed his eyes and with one final burst of energy he brought his knee up fast and hard delivering a second blow to Hunt's balls. Hunt screamed again losing his grip on Quade's neck. He staggered to his feet clutching at the family jewels. He reached for the huge knife he'd brought with him, determined to finish the bastard once and for all.

Coldly Hunt stood in front of the bound man on the ground the tip of the blade inches from Quade's throat. Quade stared back, defiant to the last but his eyes were narrowed in pain and his chest rose and fell quickly, his breathing constricted by the position of his arms.

Positioning himself for the killing blow Hunt took his stance. 'Any last words?' he asked icily.

If he was going to go, he'd do it in a blaze of glory, goading his attacker till the bitter end. 'Took ya long enough….' Quade mumbled, his eyes clouding and half closed. A drop of sweat dripped from a curl to land on the brunet's cheek and with that drop Hunt stopped.

_Si-mon….Si-mon. _

_The old zoo. _

_Old musty smelling cages. _

_A huge aviary on a hill and a man dangling by his wrists from the centre of the ironwork. _

_A raised curly head. _

_A look of pain behind indigo eyes_.

A chill ran down Hunt's back and his hand convulsed around his blade. He took a stronger hold of the hilt and breathed deep. He could do this – he could! The tip of the blade hovered millimetres from the olive toned throat whilst Quade glared back angrily. The blade slipped and a small red rimmed wound appeared on Quade's neck. Blood trickled down and Quade flinched, expected the coup de grace. A small yelp escaped the brunet's lips and his head fell forwards.

_I got ya buddy. I got ya._

A familiar voice sounded in Hunt's ears although he didn't know where it had come from, but it shook his resolve more than any amount of pleading could have. With a yell of anguish and confusion Hunt threw down the knife, staggered back and ran from the small clearing leaving Quade tied to the tree wondering what the hell had just happened.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

The blinds across the window gave a zebra effect to the large corner office occupied by the single man. That man had been tidying his paperwork up and preparing to go home – a place he hadn't been for just over a month now. Tiredly Dr Isaac massaged the muscles at the back of his neck, rotating it luxuriously to get rid of the knot of muscle that had resided there since the project began. Isaac leaned back in his black leather swivel chair and thought about his two "patients". He'd patched them up as well as he was able, a task made easier because both David Starsky and Ken Hutchinson had been in superb physical shape…..before their "accident".

When they had been brought into the facility (which was in fact a full floor of Da Luca's new office block converted into a hospital wing) Isaac had been a little stunned at how badly hurt both detectives had been. His remit had been to continue the brainwashing treatment he'd used at the Casa in the desert to turn one man against the other. He had not prepared himself for the poor shape both men were in when they were delivered to him. He had had strong words with Mr Lake who had in turn had strong words back. In effect Lake told Isaac that they were not medical patients in the true sense of the word and that any injuries they'd incurred in getting to the facility were legitimate. These were men Mr Da Luca wanted out of the way and whilst it seemed a waste of the doctor's time to heal them and work on their minds just to have them destroy each other, that was not Isaac's concern.

So Doctor Isaac operated, put the men back together again and under normal circumstances would have been happy at the ensuing results. Physically both Starsky and Hutch were well on the road to full fitness – a testament to Isaac's skill and the cops' fitness levels. Mentally both men were screwed.

Sighing deeply Isaac reached for the two detectives files and opened them at the final treatment pages, checking on the drugs pages so that he could catalogue the results later. He read the results soundlessly.

**David Starsky. **

Admitted August 12th.

**Condition** – sucking injury to chest, four broken ribs, broken ankle, ruptured spleen.

**Recovery** – over a period of eighteen days post operatively. Usual drugs given. Oxycontin and Oxynorm for pain. Penicillin IV for infection. Regular doses of Regulon for mental state.

**On discharge**

Regulon given orally – 300mg three times daily for 21 days. Final dosage of 3000mg Intramuscularly before discharge. Usual sound and light memory treatment whilst sleeping.

**Ken Hutchinson**

Admitted August 12th

**Condition** – dislocation and fracture to right elbow. Two broken ribs, severe concussion and possible skull fracture, bruises and contusions.

**Recovery** – over a period of fifteen days post operatively. X-rays for skull fracture proved inconclusive. Dislocation and fracture of elbow reduced under general anaesthetic. Oxycontin and Oxynorm for pain. Penicillin IV for infection. Regular doses of Regulon for mental state.

**On discharge**

This patient was particularly resistant to mind control techniques and required treatment in the sound room. Regulon given orally – 300mg three times daily for 21 days. Final dosage of 300mg Intramuscularly before discharge. Usual sound and light memory treatment whilst sleeping.

Isaac was about to close the folders and file them away when something about that last paragraph alerted him. He read it again. "Final dosage of 300mg Intramuscularly before discharge. Usual sound and light memory treatment whilst sleeping." Final dose of 300mg, not 3000mg! Fuck! The blond one, the one that had fought the brainwashing process all the way through hadn't had sufficient final dose!

Isaac's mouth went dry and his hand started to shake against the wood of the table. He'd seen what Mr Lake and Mr Da Luca could do to those who failed them. The previous doctor – the one in charge at the Casa in the desert had been found by the Bay City police hanging from a meat hook in a processing plant. His tongue had been cut out, his eyes were gone and the hook from which he was hanging had been inserted through the under part of his chin. The coroner had reported that all the injuries, including the meat hook had been inflicted whilst the victim was alive.

Isaac staggered to his private bathroom, closed the door and leaned over the pan, heaving until he had nothing left in his stomach. He sat by the white porcelain panting as he wiped his mouth and tried to compose his thoughts and slowly an idea formed in his head.

Getting up shakily, Isaac walked back into his office and took Hutch's file again. All the final notes had been written by one of the orderlies who had looked after the two detectives. Maybe….just maybe he could get away with this. The doctor wiped his sweating hands down the sides of his trousers, picked up Hutch's and Starsky's files and headed out and along the corridor to the largest office down at the end. He stopped outside the door, took a deep breath and knocked, waiting until Mr Lakes issued the command to come in.

Carefully and unsure whether his knocking knees were registering beneath his trousers, Doctor Isaac walked across the deep pile burgundy carpet to the desk used by Mr Lake. He stopped in front of the desk and waited patiently until Lake looked up.

'Well?' Lake asked.

'I was um…..well I was reviewing the files before they were filed away' Isaac stammered, laying Hutch's file down on the desk in front of Lake.

'Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like what you have to tell me Doctor?'

Isaac let out a dramatic sigh. 'I did everything I could, but I really shouldn't have left the final injections to Nurse Williams. He's a good nurse but he's sloppy and…'

'And what?' lake asked sharply.

'And I'm afraid there has been a mistake.'

Lake placed his pen down on the table with precision and sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he looked over them at Isaac. 'What kind of mistake?'

'I wrote both subjects up for a final dose of 3000mg of Regulon and one of them get only ten percent of that amount.'

'Do I need to ask which one?'

Doctor Isaac swallowed hard. 'If it had been Starsky this wouldn't be too much of a problem. His experiences at the hands of the Viet Cong and his susceptibility to the drug meant he was an ideal subject for Regulon. He took the drug and the conditioning well but as you know we had a certain amount of…trouble with Hutchinson.'

'And you're telling me what?' Lake was sitting forwards again and his face had turned ugly and dangerous.

'It was Hutchinson who received the smaller final dose' Isaac said in a rush. 'I can't apologise enough although I did write them up for the same amount, I assure you.'

Lake sighed deeply again. 'Then we have two questions. Who caused the problem and what do we do about it? Mr Da Luca is not a patient man Doctor. If he finds out that you've been wasting his time…..'

'Williams. It was Williams' fault. He obviously didn't read my notes properly and he didn't get the dosage checked. If anyone's to blame it's Nurse Williams' Isaac stammered.

'Then get him in here.'

Isaac tried to stall. While not wanting to take the blame himself, he wasn't enough of a bastard to want any harm to come to the nurse who had worked with him for the past six months. 'Let me deal with him Mr Lake. I'll make sure he knows the error of his ways.'

But Lake shook his head. 'Get him in here now. I just want a word with him.'

Isaac nodded and used the telephone on Lake's desk to page the nurse. Two minutes later Williams knocked on the door and entered when Lake told him to. The large male nurse walked into the office and stood with his legs parted and his hands folded in the small of his back like a good ex-Army nurse should do. Sensibly he said nothing.

'You gave Starsky and Hutch their last injections of Regulon?' Lake asked.

Williams nodded. 'Just like it said in the notes Sir.'

A gun shot blasted the room even though the muzzle of Lake's gun wore a silencer. Williams' face registered shock as a third eye appeared in the middle of his head. Nothing happened for an eternity and then Williams' body crumpled and fell where it had stood at the opposite side of the desk from Lake. Mr Lake calmly thumbed the safety back onto his gun and put it back into the drawer. He pushed a button on his intercom and asked for a cleaner and when a large man in a blue overall appeared he grunted. 'Get this piece of shit out of my office.'

The cleaner made no comment. Instead he took a hold of the body by its arms and dragged it across the floor, the heels of Williams' shoes leaving grooves through the deep pile of the carpet.

Calmly Lake looked back at the doctor whose face had gone several shades whiter. Isaac shook visibly now and it took him a moment to regain some of his composure. 'What?' he asked, registering that Lake had been talking to him.

'I said that that's one question answered. Now what do we do about Starsky and above all Hutchinson?'

Isaac tried to get his brain back into gear. 'Starsky should be fine. If I'd told him he was married to the Queen of England he'd have believed it before he left. As for Hutchinson…..'

'Is the boat still standing by?' Lake asked.

'Yeah. I mean they were told to go back onto the island after three days to see what progress had been made. I'd assumed that by the way they'd been primed, they'd have killed each other by then.'

'Then we get a message to the men on the boat to go in early. It's a shame to spoil the fun but I think we need to finish them once and for all. Don't you?'

'Right! I mean, yes, certainly. I'll go and send the message now.' Isaac walked to the door and as his hand reached for the handle Lake cleared his throat.

'Don't let me down again Doctor. There are only so many little people I can kill before I have to face the fact of who is really to blame.'

Isaac nodded once, escaped from the office and headed for the nearest bathroom to empty the rest of the contents of his stomach down the pan.

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

On the island Ethan Quade/David Starsky was having problems of his own. He'd managed to preserve an air of bravado while Hunt had been around. He'd been pleased that he'd managed to get in two strikes at Hunt's most sensitive places but the position he found himself tied in, his existing injuries and the new ones incurred when he fell into Hunt's pit had taken away his last reserves of energy.

The brunet hung by his wrists from the tree, his weight taken by his bonds as he'd slumped forwards semi-conscious. It had confused the hell out of him to have Hunt yell and run off as he did. Quade had been waiting for the final stroke. In a way he would have welcomed it because he was heartily sick of the pains wracking his body. His chest and back were on fire and his ankle had swollen to twice its normal size again. Coupled with that, the cuts he'd got from the coral reef on his way in were in danger of becoming infected and had taken on an unhealthy red warmth but it was the centre of his body that hurt him the most.

Quade forced his eyes open again and looked at the blood soaked jeans. Flies had started to gather, attracted by the smell of his blood and he twitched his hips to make them leave. They did for a moment but then settled back down to their feast. The splinter still stuck out obscenely from his jeans although Quade couldn't tell whether it has pierced his scrotum or his cock. Whichever, the would continued to bleed freely and whenever he moved – or even breathed – the wound sent out huge electric shocks of pain that overwrote the dull ache in his groin.

The bound man let out a pitiful groan. He had reached the end of his reserves. He'd come to the island to kill Hunt and yet now all Quade wanted was to lie down, sleep and free himself from his pain. Small shivers wracked his body and he felt nauseous probably from loss of blood. _Great, if the bastard leaves me here long enough I'll just bleed to death._

Quades chin rested on his chest. It set up another ache in his ribs but right now, the brunet was too far gone to care. He closed his eyes again. _I failed ya Chris. I'm sorry Bro_.

For a moment there was silence in the small clearing. The birds started to sing again and they were lulling Quade into a deeper state of sleep when suddenly he felt something else across his lower legs.

Quade opened his eyes and looked up quickly just in time to see something slither up the side of his body. Obviously it wasn't only the flies that seemed to be attracted to his blood and as his eyes widened in horror, Quade saw the forked tongue and the small black eyes of the snake as it started to slither up and over his hip.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Hunt staggered back from the man bound to the tree. He clutched at the centre of his body feeling the kick as though it had come out from the top of his head. One part of Ray Hunt wanted to take the man on the ground and kick him into the middle of next week. He'd spent the past few days (since he'd found out about Ethan Quade) planning on the fitting retribution for the man who raped his sister and yet now that he had Quade at his mercy; now that he had the man bound, injured and virtually helpless at his feet there was some small but important part of Hunt that stopped him from delivering that final blow.

The blond man was as confused as hell. Twice he balled his hand into a fist. Twice he took a deep breath and took a step towards the brunet and twice at the last moment he stopped short of making contact. Finally with a yell of frustration and pain Hunt lurched away from the clearing and out through the vegetation needing somewhere away from the brunet to clear his mind and get his thoughts into some kind of order.

Quade wasn't the only one who was suffering the after effects of the journey to the island. Hunt's own injuries from the crash, though not as severe as Quade's were still beginning to make their presence felt. As he staggered away with his hands cupping his balls for support, his chest hurt and his head ached viciously too. By the time he'd staggered a hundred yards away, the blond finally dropped to his knees on the ground and threw up the contents of his stomach onto the ground, continuing to vomit until he could accomplish nothing more than dry heaves. Hunt shuffled a little way away from the messy puddle he'd created and rolled onto his side, knees up and hands still around the family jewels. He rolled slowly onto his back and then onto his other side, eyes closed against the sparkles and fireworks going off inside his head. It ached more than he could ever remember it aching before, which truthfully wasn't that long, but still, it threatened to send the man into unconsciousness such was the severity of the pain. Hunt lay on the ground gasping and trying to fight those pains. He closed his eyes and willed them to go away, slowing his breathing until it was calm and regular, in through his nose and out through his mouth.

Ten minutes later some of the pains had subsided but the confusion remained. Why couldn't he finish Quade? Why couldn't he finish what he'd come here to do? What was it about his adversary that stopped him from ploughing his fist into that olive toned face? And why did Quade's eyes seem to have such a hold over him? Hunt didn't think he'd ever been a sucker for eyes and yet there was something about those deep, deep indigo eyes that made him feel as though someone had clutched as his heart. It was a gut feeling, visceral and intense and as weird as hell. The more Hunt thought about it, the less he felt he understood it and the more he came to realise that the memories; flashbacks; call them what you will, seemed somehow connected with Quade. Had he tried to kill the man before? Was that where all this shit was coming from? That explanation didn't seem to sit comfortably either, but it was the only explanation Hunt had for the moment.

With a groan of pain the blond man forced himself to his knees. Quade had certainly worked a number on his balls and out of pure grisly interest Hunt lowered his pants and whistled low at the spreading black and blue bruise forming across the top of his legs and the centre of his body. Seeing it brought more pain and another wave of nausea but oddly he felt nothing more about Quade. Logic would have dictated that after the brunet injuring him so significantly he'd have wanted to kill Quade all the more and yet….

The sun was beginning to drop lower in the sky now. By Hunt's estimation it was maybe four in the afternoon. Quade would be suffering worse pain than Hunt right now and for a brief second Hunt had the strong desire to go back and check on his captive – not as a captor would but more as a concerned friend. Where the hell had that come from? Was Hunt sick? Had Quade kicked his head as well as his balls? Hunt snickered to himself. _You're getting soft Ray old boy. Go find a drink of water, have a rest. He aint goin' nowhere._

Softly the flaxen haired man got to his feet. He stayed doubled over for a second until his body adjusted to the pains and then slowly straightened, gritting his teeth against the feeling that the world was about to fall out of his nether regions. Walking was a whole different ball game and he excused himself the pun. Hunt found it best to employ the "I've lost my horse" approach to walking, keeping his legs as far apart as he could. Every touch against his bruised body was an agony all on its own and several times he had to stifle a cry as his legs brushed his sensitive flesh whilst he put some distance between himself and Ethan Quade.

The blazing heat of the day was slowly gliding away. The afternoon held that tired, comfortable feeling, as though the day were finally settling down now that dusk was approaching and up ahead Hunt thought he saw the shine of something like water through the trees. It was maybe a stream because it was no more than a twinkle through close, green vegetation. With his throat feeling like sandpaper and with his half bottle of water back in the clearing with Quade, Hunt walked towards what he perceived to be drinking water only to be brought up short when he realised it was not water at all that he had seen. Instead he pressed the line of his body against the nearest tree, trying to blend in with the vegetation as he saw two men sitting in another small clearing. Between them was an antennae which was the bright object Hunt had seen through the trees and the two men were intent on the portable battery operated radio that sat on the ground between them.

There was something about the men – something about the way they were talking almost in whispers that made Hunt cautious. Very quietly he inched himself forwards until he could hear what was being said and then he hugged the tree for support.

The men were leaning intently over the radio which crackled and emitted a small tinny sounding voice which Hunt recognised after a moment as that of Doctor Isaac.

'……get onto the island, kill, them and then come back to base.'

'I thought we were supposed to wait until they killed each other. That was the plan' Man #1 hissed into the microphone.

'The plan has changed. There was a small error before despatch. Starsky got the full final dose of Regulon but Hutchinson only got ten percent of it. There's a danger he's going to remember.'

Hunt staggered backwards, fighting a pain in his head so intense that he grabbed at his temples, biting down on his lip to stop himself from crying out. The pain took his breath away but it wasn't just the pain that was a shock.

Hutchinson.

Dr Isaac had used the name Hutchinson. That was him! He was Hutchinson. Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson and the man he had tied up and almost killed back there…. Fuck. Starsky!

The conversation between Isaac and the two men was forgotten as Hutch bowed his head, shaking it from side to side like a wounded dog. He knew who he was. He knew his name and he knew Starsky's name. What else did he know? He knew that Starsky was his….his…..friend? That didn't sound quite right – almost like a half truth. Starsky was more than a friend and yet….

Some say memory returns in a flash. Some liken it to a waterfall where the memory starts to flow and fills up the individual with their identity. None of that happened to Hutch. Whilst he was certain of who he was and who Starsky was, the deluge of memories did not occur. Sure, the flashbacks he'd had started to make a little more sense and he now realised that on some fundamental level his mind had stopped him from killing the man in the clearing, but as to why he and Starsky were here on the island, or why Dr Isaac was involved he had no recollection. His only thought now was that Isaac had in effect put a contract out on both him and his …..friend? And he needed to get back to Starsky, give him the good news and everything would be hunky dory.

Softly, and with a care born out of wanting to be silent and invisible Hutch pushed himself back from the tree and started to hurry back the way he'd come. The pains in his body were not forgotten but now, with memories starting to return like bees to a honeypot, Hutch had a different mindset. His purpose had changed and now, far from wanting to kill Quade -_Stop that now, it's Starsky-_ he needed to get back to the brunet and tell him what was going on. Then Starsky too would remember, they'd help each other out and get off the island.

But at the back of Hutch's mind was the damaged he wrought on Starsky. Despite his feelings of friendship for the curly haired man and even if that deep friendship was mutually felt, could any man forgive being cut up, pushed into a pit, tied to a tree and generally slapped around? It would take some friendship to survive what he'd done to his friend. Shit!

Knowing that he had to get them both out of there and away from Dr Isaac – that arrest would come later – whoa. Back up and repeat. Arrest? That was it! He and Starsky were cops and if he remembered rightly damned fine ones. _Ok Hutchy get excited later. Then you can do all the reminiscing. _The blond ploughed on through the heavy vegetation, his heart now thundering in his ears. He had to get back. He had to get to Starsky but as he finally came back to the clearing Hutch could hardly bring himself to enter it and approach his friend. So much had happened. So much had been told to him about Starsky…Quade….whoever…. that he had become a monster in Hunt/Hutch's eyes. Surely the same was true of the brunet who would surely be hating Hutch/Hunt with a vengeance right now.

As the clearing in the trees came towards him Hutch took a deep breath and as he attained the tree line and was about to walk out into the clearing when the sight that met him brought him up short.

Starsky was obviously still where Hutch had left him, sitting with his legs outstretched and his back against a tree, his wrists strung up above his head. Dark blood still showed, almost black in the shadows across the centre of his shorts but there also, like the spectre of death was a small, but deadly looking snake. The reptile had slithered up until it was draped across Starsky's lap whilst the brunet had his eyes fixed on it. Even from where Hutch stood, some ten feet away, the blond could see that his friend was hyperventilating, Starsky's eyes were wide and staring and there was a sheen of perspiration across his face.

Hutch reached out a hand towards the bound man and hissed 'Starsk. Don't move.'

The brunet never looked up, in fact he didn't register that he'd heard the voice at all, but Hutch was suddenly thrown back in time so violently that he staggered against the vividness of the memory. He was standing at the door to a cabin in the hills and his partner – yes Starsky was his partner – was sitting on the floor of a small kitchen in red flannel combinations, his eyes almost popping out of his head as a rattle snake lay on the ground in front of him. Hutch had uttered those very words – "Starsk. Don't move" and Starsky had been too terrified to try.

The vision in Hutch's head brought back other memories. A girl standing at his front door asking if "it worked" and Hutch nodding and holding up an empty glass of his morning power shake and saying. "Sure. He drank it all.'

Another time with a girl's body at his feet – Gillian – clutching at Starsky's worn leather jacket as he sobbed and held onto the brunet as though his life would end.

Jokes with Huggy Bear; tricks played on Dobey; loves won and lost; lives snuffed out or put in jeopardy.

Hutch moaned, clutching at his head. It was all there. The car accident, the funeral they were supposed to have attended, the hospital and Dr Isaac's worried, earnest face advising him he had a friend for Hunt/Hutch to meet. The alias. Shit it had all been some kind of trick. But why? And more to the point what was he going to do now to help his friend?


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Starsky/Quade tried hard to keep his body from shaking. He hated snakes, God, he hated them so damned much and now here was one making itself at home in his lap.

If that fucking Hunt hadn't left him with his zipper wide open – if he'd had the family jewels protected inside his clothing – then maybe, just maybe Quade might have felt a little more comfortable having the reptile crawl all over him…..or maybe not. The snake's cool, sun-warmed body slithered up his thigh, its small lidless eyes bright as a button shining from a delicate and deadly diamond shaped head. Quade couldn't take his eyes off of the small forked tongue that darted out of the snake's mouth as it tasted the air above his blood soaked crotch. What did he smell like? Was he going to be a tasty lunch for the sinuous beast? Or would the snake consider him just another place to rest?

Shit!

What if the snake decided that his lap was the ideal place to stay for the night? Could he, Quade, keep still long enough for him not to startle the reptile into biting him? Already the brunet's shoulders and arms burned with a tension that refused to let up. He had a crick in his neck from keeping it as still as possible and his head pounded with the stress. All thoughts of retribution against Ray Hunt were gone, replaced by the terror and horror of the current situation. Even breathing was becoming an issue and Quade felt that even the smallest intake of air would alert the snake into thinking that he could well become dinner.

The snake continued to move. Its whole body was now on Quade's lap, its weight pressing the brunet down into the ground like a pile driver although the reptile could have weighed no more than a few ounces. The small tongue flicked once again and this time it touched the blood on Quade's limp cock. His flesh crept and despite himself, the centre of his body twitched as though it had a life of its own and was trying to get away. The snake stopped for a moment, watching….tasting….listening?

_Go away. I'm not food. I don't taste good. There's better lunches than me. Please just get the fuck away._ Quade thought the mantra over and again in his head as he stared at the beast on his lap. This was his worst nightmare come true. Beads of sweat beaded across his body and again that forked tongue flicked out and – oh my god it was drinking his sweat! Quade's throat constricted and he gave a small yip of fear.

The snake stopped again and this time its eyes seemed to fix on the brunet's indigo blue eyes. Man and snake stared at each other and for an eternity it seemed as though Quade could will the beast to leave him alone by sheer thought alone.

His muscles were beginning to protest now. Quade had held himself stiff and so utterly motionless for so long that lactic acid had started to build up and a small tremor was beginning to resonate in his arms. The snake picked up on the tiny movement, its body uncurling slightly as its eyes fixed on the blood covered morsel in front of it.

The tremor turned into an all out shake as Quade's rebellious muscles started to vibrate with the effort of holding still. It was all the impetus the snake needed. The reptile had been curious. It had smelled the coppery tang of the blood and that alone had lured the snake into coming to take a look. At first it had merely been curiosity. The snake disliked carrion and although this body smelled of fresh blood, there was no movement to excite it. Now that had changed. This wasn't a dead body which meant that the fresh meat would make a tasty snack.

Quade watched in desperation and horror. It happened as if in slow motion and there was nothing he could do to stop the snake now as it brought it's beautiful and deadly head back, it's mouth gaping wide as it started the downwards arc for the first strike. The brunet closed his eyes and waited for the first sharp stick of the fangs in his flesh. Would the poison hurt? Would it kill him instantly or would he suffer for a while first?

Oddly the thought of the pain didn't really bother him so much as the thought that he would never get to finish off Ray Hunt and avenge Chris' death.

Relaxing into the inevitable, Quade let his head fall back against the tree trunk waiting for death. No use fighting it. Guns he could deal with, car crashes he seemed to be able to recover from but here on this damned island with no medical facilities even he would never survive a snake bite.

It never came.

The expected excruciating kiss of the snake never happened. Instead Quade felt a rush of air by the side of him and suddenly the weight of the serpent in his lap had gone. The brunet opened his eyes in disbelief in time to see his captor, Ray Hunt standing and throwing the snake by its tail bodily out into the trees.

_From the frying pan into the fire Ethan, that's' what just happened. He took care of the snake just so as he could finish you himself. Terrific!_

But this was an adversary Quade understood and now that the fear of the snake was beginning to melt away, he turned the full force of defiant indigo blue eyes onto his captor, expecting at least a face full of fist for starters.

That never came either. It must be an evening of surprises, Quade thought to himself and braced his back against the tree as, wonder of wonders, Hunt crouched down next to him and looked into his eyes.

'Are you OK Starsk?' Hunt's voice sounded shaken but not angry. What the hell was going on?

Quade gathered the remaining spit in his mouth and swilled it over his bone dry lips. 'What?'

'I asked if you were ok.'

'I'm just great.'

'Did it bite you?' Hutch reached towards Starsky's injured body, but Quade/Starsky moved his leg, shielding the centre of his body as best he could. The movement caused a small pain noise in the back of the brunet's throat.

'I was only gonna check' Hutch muttered.

'Uh huh, and have another go at the splinter? I don't think so Pal. Cut me loose and we finish this here and now.'

'We don't need to finish anythin' Starsky. We've been played.'

'What did you just call me?'

'Starsk. Starsky. That's your name. It's…. It's a long story and I don't understand most of it yet either but you're David Starsky and I'm Hutch. Remember?'

Quade shook his head, looking at Hunt…..Hutch? as though the blond man had lost his mind. 'No.'

Hutch shook his head. 'It's too hard to explain and we don't have time. There are some men on the island who want us dead. We need to go.'

'Nice try Hunt. Wanna confuse the bleeding man huh? You got me where you want me. Either cut me loose and make it a fair fight or finish me now. I'm tired of playing this game.'

Hutch sighed. 'It's no game Starsk. This is for real and so are the two men with the big guns who're gonna come looking for us pretty soon. We need to get outa here now.'

'Then cut me loose' Starsky's voice was intent and low but there was something in those familiar blue eyes that stopped Hutch's hand short of the bonds. He looked down at his partner, knife hovering over the rope around Starsky's wrists.

'You don't trust me do ya? You don't remember a damned thing.'

'I remember enough' Starsky replied carefully.

'Enough for what? To jump me the minute I cut you free? Starsk, for God's sake I can't explain now coz there isn't time and I don't understand all of it yet, but I do know I don't wanna die on this stinkin' island either at their hands or yours. I wanna cut you a deal. Ok?'

Starsky blew out a breath through his nose in that oh so familiar way that sent a fist clutching around Hutch's heart. What the blond wouldn't have given at that moment for his partner to look up and give that lopsided grin. Instead, cold indigo eyes met his. The silence stretched into eternity but finally Starsky broke it.

'Go on.'

'I cut you free and you behave. We work together to get off of this place and then we sit down and talk.'

The brunet considered for a moment. 'Cut me loose and we'll get of the island. After that all options are open.'

Hutch shook his head sadly but sawed through the ropes binding his partner to the tree. As the last fibres parted Starsky's arms dropped uselessly to his side and with a low groan he started to try to massage his wrists. Hutch reached out and would have taken one to rub but Starsky snatched it away with an angry look.

'Don't touch me.'

Hutch backed off and sat back on his heels. He held up his hands in surrender. 'Ok, ok. I was just tryin' to help.'

'I don't need your brand of help Pal. It was you who strung me up here remember?'

'And for that I'm sorry. Look, apparently we've both been played….'

'You said that already. All I remember is a car crash and a hospital.'

'Me too' Hutch nodded. 'Same crash, same hospital. We need answers and when we get back to the mainland we can get them, but right now we gotta get movin'.' The blond stood and held out a hand to help Starsky up. The brunet ignored it but when he tried to move the centre of his body the pain threatened to overwhelm him and he let out a strangled scream.

Immediately Hutch was on his knees again, his large firm hand over Starsky's mouth to silence the noise. Angry eyes stared at him over the top of his fingers but Starsky made no attempt to remove the hand. Instead the brunet closed his eyes and Hutch could feel his buddy breathing deep past the pain to recover his composure.

'You ok?' Hutch hissed. An angry nod answered him and slowly he took away his hand leaving Starsky panting slightly. 'We've gotta take out the splinter before you try to move again. It's gonna cause more damage to leave it in than take it out.'

'S not a splinter. It's a fuckin' tree trunk' Starsky mumbled, his hands cupped around the centre of his body.

'Let me look.'

The curly headed man shook his head. 'Who d'ya think you are? Dr Zhivago? You got it there in the first place….._remember?_ I can fix it.'

'I can help' Hutch said as gently as he could. The feelings of anger – at himself – threatened to overwhelm him. The feelings of wanting – needing – to help the smaller man were even stronger and to have his help cast aside so coldly sent a spear through his heart.

'You can get the fuck away from me. I said I can do this' Starsky hissed angrily. As Hutch watched from a distance, Starsky opened the blood soaked shorts and stared at the large wooden splinter still embedded in his scrotum. It seemed to be off centre and from what he could feel it had not pierced anything vital. Only the skin seemed to be affected but that was bad enough and the brunet's hand trembled as he gently took a hold of the tip of the wood. Even that gentle pressure sent spikes of agony through his body and Starsky breathed deeply and loudly through his teeth as he closed his eyes and mentally counted to three. On the third count he pulled but the splinter was slick and slippery with blood and did not come away from the flesh. Starsky swallowed down the scream that threatened to spill from his lips and leaned his head back against the tree. The pain was the most intense he'd ever remembered feeling and it sent him dizzy and nauseous so that he had to close his eyes and concentrate on bringing his stomach under control.

As he lay panting wildly he felt a gentle hand on the centre of his body and before he could protest further a low voice whispered "I'm sorry Starsk" into his ear. Starsky was just about to protest when the splinter was pulled forcibly from his flesh and the hand fell back into place across his mouth.

Hutch felt the sweat start to flow across his buddy's skin and he felt the breath coming quick across the back of the knuckles of the hand he'd placed over Starsky's mouth to stop the shriek that would inevitable follow the splinter's extraction. The blond waited for a moment until Starsky had regained some of his composure and then he removed his hand again.

'Am I supposed to thank you?' Starsky hissed.

'I'm sorry Starsk. I couldn't stand watching you hurt yourself.'

Heatedly the brunet snorted. 'Save the hearts and flowers. It don't' cut it with me Pal. And quit calling me Starsk, the name is Quade. Ethan Quade.'

Hutch shook his head. 'Sure I'll leave you alone. I won't touch you again, I promise, but as for your name, it is, and always has been Dave Starsky an' I won't call you anythin' else.'

Starsky hesitated a moment. Something about what the blond man had said seemed to strike a chord, but he didn't have time to analyse that right now. Instead, he shrugged. 'You talk like we know each other.'

Hutch nodded. 'You could say that.'

'I don't know anything about you Hunt. Other than that you're a drug running murderer.'

'Hutch. Not Hunt' Hutch said patiently ignoring the comment. 'And yes, we do know each other. We're cops. We're partners and we have been for a long time.'

'I don't think so.'

'"I've done my homework for 7 years pal. I know how, where, when you eat, walk, sleep, talk, I know who you know, what you know, and how you know it and there aint no hidin' behind that." You once told me that and now you're telling me you don't remember a damned thing?' Hutch's voice held a touch of frustration to it and also a wistful edge that Starsky didn't understand. Instead the brunet stared coldly at his so-called partner.

'Pretty speech. Save it for the ladies huh? I don't have to like you to know we need to work together to get out of here. Just cut the crap, shut the fuck up and let's start walkin' huh?' Unsteadily Starsky managed to get to his feet. The centre of his body smarted like hell and his ankle had stiffened and swollen.

Together the two men gathered up all their belongings and started to walk out of the clearing.

Once partners and the best of friends now the only thing in common was that they both walked bow legged and as though they'd lost their horse!


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Starsky made Hutch walk in front. He also made Hutch carry all the gear they'd brought with them. Whether he'd learned it from the army or whether he really was a cop, one thing he knew for sure was that you should keep your enemies in sight and keep them occupied. He had the blond man firmly in his sights and with two bags to carry Hutch's hands were full. If this was a trick and the flaxen haired man was leading into some other sort of ambush, Hutch would have to drop the bags first and turn to face Starsky. Starsky would have preferred that Hutch was tied – handcuffed even – to make the brunet feel secure, but that wasn't an option and even if it was, logic dictated that if there were men after the two of them, it was better to have the blond able to fight.

Starsky was tired. His shoulders ached unmercifully from having been tied against the tree for so long. That made his chest hurt even more and breathing was a bit of an issue now that he was up and walking. The centre of his body was just one huge pain. It felt as though someone had set fire to his groin and was steadily adding gasoline to the flames and the loss of blood left the brunet feeling weak and nauseous. As he walked he cursed under his breath and finally Hutch stopped and turned to him.

'Will ya stop that?'

'What?'

'That…..that mutterin'. You want the bad guys to come find us?'

'I wasn't mutterin'.'

Hutch wrinkled his forehead. 'No?'

'I was cursin'. There's a difference.'

'Well curse quieter huh?'

Starsky stopped walking and tried hard not to show Hutch just how hurt he was. Casually he leaned against the trunk of a tree although his knuckles showed white where they were gripping the rough bark. 'Tell me where we're going.'

'Mind if I put the bags down?' Hutch asked.

'Uh uh Pal. Keep your hands full and where I can see 'em.' There was a challenge in Starsky's eyes that told his partner not to push too hard. Hutch sighed but held onto the bags.

'We're getting' off the island, or so I thought we'd agreed.'

It was Starsky's turn to sigh. He needed to show Hutch that he was ok – ready to fight if he had to – but there was no way he was up to another half mile swim across that reef. 'How?' he asked carefully.

'I don't know how you got here, but some guy I don't know said he was a friend from my old life. He got a boat and brought me here. I didn't know it was a set up. He had me fired up ready to kill Ethan Quade…..you.'

'Terrific. And who was this guy?'

Hutch shook his head. 'Like I say. He told me he was a friend from my old life. He said I was a firefighter from up north in Seattle. He told me you'd raped and killed my sister and he could get me to you. He said you'd be here on this island and that no-one else lived here – that it belonged to a friend. He brought me here by boat and landed me at a jetty.'

'There was a jetty?' Starsky asked bitterly.

'Yeah. Where did you land?'

The brunet shook his head. 'It don't matter. And for the record I didn't fuck your sister. I don't even know your sister. I don't know you.'

Hutch shook his head. 'You know my sister Starsk. Karen. She's living back in Duluth. She's alive and well. I never lived in Seattle. I'm not a firefighter, I'm a cop…..in Bay City. And so are you. We're partners and have been for over five years.'

Starsky shook his head slowly. Something stirred inside Starsky's gut. It made him squirm feeling so uncomfortable that it drew a rage so profound to the surface that without any warning he felt a yell of rage ripped from his throat as he launched himself against the blond. Hutch found himself suddenly the target of the curly headed missile and managed to drop the bags just in time to free his hands and drop to his butt, grabbing Starsky's arms and planting a foot into Starsky's midriff so that he could use the brunet's momentum to roll Starsky's body over his head.

The curly haired man landed with a "woof" as the breath was knocked from his body and Hutch scrabbled around so that he could straddle to brunet's body, pinning Starsky's arms to the ground. Breathlessly he locked eyes with his buddy, refusing to shy away from the unmasked anger into the indigo blue eyes below him.

'Will ya stop that Starsk. It's me. It's Hutch. Your partner. Your friend? Starsky? Please? We need to work together to get off this fuckin' place and then we can work on getting' your memories back.'

Starsky struggled all the more. The feeling in his gut had grown so that he felt like fire ants were crawling over his skin. Dr Isaac had told him all about this guy – this Hunt….Hutch…..whatever he called himself. He was the sort of guy who'd do anything to trick him, including playing mind games with him.

Fine. If that was the way he had to play. Starsky stopped struggling and tried to calm himself. He'd get back at the blond later. Right now he wanted to put as much distance between them as he could. 'Get off of me' Starsky growled.

Hutch looked down at him, hoping for some kind of evidence that Starsky was back to being Starsky. There was nothing apparent but he couldn't hold the brunet down all day and so reluctantly he moved, letting Starsky first sit and then stand up. Immediately Starsky picked up his own small bag and stalked off through the trees.

'Starsk. Where are you going?' Hutch hissed.

Angrily the brunet turned. 'The truce is off. I won't kill ya till we both get back to the mainland, but you're on your own till then Hunt.'

'Hutch. I'm Hutch and I don't think it's a good idea to split up.'

Starsky grinned but there was no light in his eyes. 'I just bet ya don't' he said as he turned and walked away.

Hutch was left sitting on the ground cursing. Whatever had happened to them both in that hospital – whatever had been done to them, Starsky was obviously a lot worse that Hutch. For one moment the blond considered. Maybe this was the trick. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him again and maybe he really was Ray Hunt and that really was Ethan Quade. Were Starsky and Hutch the figments of his imagination? It sounded like some cheesy TV cop show when he said it to himself like that and yet, the more he thought about it, the more memories came back to him. As an experiment, Hutch tried to imagine himself living in Seattle as a firefighter. It didn't work. There was nothing. No memory. No feeling of place. No gut reaction. If that was his real life then someone had worked a real job on him! It seemed more sensible that someone would take two cops as retribution for something maybe, than for a firefighter and his enemy to be kindly put in the same place at the same time and given the wherewithal to finish things.

The blond shook his head. Yeah. He was a cop. He was Ken Hutchinson and that curly headed hellion was most definitely his partner Dave Starsky. Even the slightly bow legged strut of the hips was a dead giveaway. He'd watched that strut for five years as it ran down flakes and pulled girls by the score.

Finally as sure of himself as he was going to get, Hutch pulled himself to his feet. A small part of him wanted to leave the brunet to his own devices. Starsky was big enough to look after himself after all. Hutch was not his keeper, but as the brunet was not in his right mind, Hutch picked up his bag and prepared to go and find his partner.

The blond walked off through the trees muttering to himself. The feel of Starsky's lean, hard body beneath him was still as much a memory as was the look of cold hate in those familiar eyes and yet Hutch couldn't quite bring himself to hate Starsky back. Instead, as he felt he'd always done, he felt a compulsion to look after the smaller man, even though Starsky was tough, streetwise and as capable as the next man in a fight. The blond was just thinking of the fights he and his partner had been in as he heard a muffled voice up ahead. At once on the alert, Hutch folded his memories away to be taken out again later. Quietly he dropped the bag and grabbed his knife. He moved forwards through the trees in time to see Starsky, facing him with his hands laced on the top of his head. Between Hutch and Starsky, and with his back to the blond, one of the escorts to the island stood with a gun aimed at Starsky's head.

The brunet had been walking sullenly along a small animal track. His head had been a jumble of mixed emotions, feelings and confusion. He hated Hunt – Ray Hunt. He'd been told that Ray Hunt would be on this island and he'd built up a mental picture of a drug dealer who was tall, muscular and evil looking. Starsky had also cultivated a healthy disregard for Hunt's life and had prepared himself to kill Hunt. When he'd met the blond somehow those feelings had dissipated somewhat. However hard he tried to imagine the flaxen haired man as a drug runner, something in Starsky's head stopped him from believing it. Try as he might, the brunet could not bring himself to hate Hutch….Hunt as much as he felt he should although the thought of them actually knowing each other and even being cops together was one leap of faith too far.

So wrapped up in his thoughts had Starsky been that when he heard the twig snap behind him, he'd been a split second too slow in turning. He heard a voice hiss freeze and was about to snarl at Hutch when the sight of the other man took away his words. So, Hutch had been right about that. There were other men on the island and by the look of the very deadly looking gun in this ones hand, they wanted Starsky and maybe Hutch dead.

Starsky dropped his bag to the ground as ordered and latticed his fingers on top of his head, regarding the gunman with weary but defiant eyes. The gunman leered at him, enjoying the look of exhaustion on the brunet's face and wanting to stretch out the moment for maximum gratification.

Starsky's eyes narrowed slightly and he braced himself for the kiss of the hot metal as the slug would inevitably pass though his body. He readied himself to die as he saw the gunman's finger start to squeeze the trigger and at the last moment, Starsky closed his eyes.

The bullet never came.

There was the sound of the shot echoing through the trees and the smell of cordite heavy in the air and yet there was no pain, no impact throwing him backwards. Nothing.

Starsky opened his eyes in surprise to see Hutch standing by the side of the fallen gunman, the huge knife reversed so that he could use the hilt as a cosh. For a moment the brunet stood in mute silence, looking from the man on the ground to Hutch and back again. When his muscles started to move again, Starsky bent and picked up his bag and shouldered it.

'Why?' the brunet asked.

'Huh?' Hutch's eyebrows V'd in question.

'Why take him out when he was gonna save you the job of killing me.'

Hutch shook his head slowly. 'Starsk why would I kill ya? You're my partner and my friend. I'd rather cut off my……'

'Like you tried to cut off mine?' the brunet grunted looking down at the blood on his shorts.

'I never tried to cut it off!'

'Hm. There was wood….and blood. Same thing.'

'Would it hurt so much to say "thank you Hutch for saving my life?"' Hutch asked, rage and frustration boiling below the surface of his emotions.

'Shuddup' Starsky grunted, turned his back and walked away. Balling his hands into fists, Hutch picked up his own bag and followed.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

'He'll see me and if he don't, then the Bear is gonna huff and puff and blow his house down. Now get out of my way before I really lose my cool huh?'

Captain Dobey looked up just in time to see one of the younger detectives trying to stop a tall, lanky black figure from pushing into his office. The Captain sighed, put down his pen and waved the younger cop away. 'It's fine Hackmeister, thanks.' Dobey sat back in his chair and regarded Huggy Bear angrily.

'What the hell gives you the right to ramraid your way into my office?' he grunted.

'When my friends look like their back up has gone out of the window, it's up to the Bear to get them back on track.'

'Are you saying I've deserted my men?'

Huggy sank into the chair that his friends usually occupied and fixed the Captain with a stare which was not exactly friendly. 'That's pretty much what I'm sayin' yeah.'

'Get out Huggy. Get out and stay out' Dobey's voice rose another decibel.

'Uh uh. Not till you get the show on the road again.'

'What the fuck do you think I've been doin.'

'Not a clue Cap'n, but from where I'm standin' I can tell you what you aint doin'. You aint lookin' for Starsky and Hutch and you aint lookin' for whoever's got 'em.'

Dobey looked as though he were about to explode. 'I have had APBs out on them since the moment they disappeared. I've had every spare uniform in the city on the lookout for them or anyone else that might have information. I've sat here every day and night for so long that Edith thinks she's single again. What else can I do? Tell me what else I should do an' I'll do it.'

'Find Terry Nash and ask him about what went on at the place in the desert. Ask him how the operation worked. Pump him for information, just like I told you to do a month ago.'

The big black Captain slammed his ham fist on the desk, making the photos of his kids bounce in their frames. 'Terry Nash doesn't exist. A guy that thinks he's Nash is out of state right now. He's in therapy trying to forget how to be Nash and remember how to be who he used to be. He aint no help at all. We've had this argument countless times Huggy. Nash has nothing to do with Starsky and Hutch's disappearance. They never turned up to Durniak's funeral, no-one has seen them since, the Torino is a wreck and last time the Feds spoke to me, they were still banging on about the $10,000 found in Starsky's apartment – Durniak's money. Now you tell me what you would think if you were a cop huh?'

Huggy shook his head. 'And I thought you were their friend as well as their Captain. Seems to me the Feds have fed you a line and you've tried and convicted your men without even putting up an argument!'

'Shut up Hug, before I take my fist and shut your mouth for you' Dobey yelled, all acts of composure suddenly in tatters.

In response, Huggy bounced out of his seat and leaned over the table until his face was inches from Dobey's. The look on the lanky barman's face was like nothing Dobey had seen before and Dobey sat back involuntarily. Huggy's voice was quiet and icy calm.

'Fine. Shut me up. Take your aggression out on my pretty face. But when you've done I want you to sit back and really examine your feelings. I'm betting my last dollar you're gonna realise you've been suckered by the Feds. Think on it Harold….' The use of his first name brought Dobey's eyes back into focus and his eyebrows rose. '….they are your best men. They've saved your life before now. They saved Edith and Rosey and Cal and they never even stopped to think. Now it's your turn. Don't listen to the suits. Listen to your feelings. Listen to them Cap'n and act on them coz my friends are out there, I know they are. And I'll move heaven and earth to get 'em back. I just hope you do too.' With that, Huggy pulled himself up straight and with more dignity than Dobey had ever seen, the bar tender opened the door, paused and then closed it behind him leaving the Captain feeling small and very thoughtful.

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

Hutch paused a moment to watch his buddy stalk off down the path before picking up his bag and hurrying after Starsky. He should have been angry; he should have been hurt at the very least and yet the overriding feeling in Hutch's mind at that moment was relief that the smaller man was relatively unharmed.

Catching up, he grabbed Starsky's arm and whirled him around to face him. 'You're welcome' Hutch said softly. 'But whether you wanted to thank me or not, I just wanted to get you to agree – there are bad men out here looking for us.'

Starsky snorted. 'Ya think?'

'Ok, so you agree. I know you don't believe me about the other stuff and I know you still think of me as the enemy, but there's a bigger enemy out there. Do you at least agree that we work together to eliminate them and get off of this island?'

The brunet seemed to consider for a moment. He was way more than confused right now and the absence of memories was keeping him constantly off balance as though he were participating in a play where everyone knew the plot except him. Thoughtfully he nodded, because the incident with the gunman had shaken him more than he wanted to let on. 'Sure. You seem to be the one with all the answers. Lead the way Cochise.'

Hutch smiled and Starsky immediately frowned. 'What?'

'You used to call me that sometimes, when you felt I was acting like a know all.'

The brunet nodded. 'I don't know you Pal, but if I did, I'd say my assessment of you was right. You do act like you're a know all.'

'Uh huh. And a klutz, but I saved your ass back there. Do you at least trust be a little bit?'

Starsky shrugged his shoulders. 'Get us off this island in one piece and without getting our feet wet and I'll reconsider.'

'Deal. Now there's the other guy to deal with and I have a plan.'

'Wanna share?'

'Remember the pit – the one you um….'

Starsky touched the front of his shorts. 'Oh yeah. How could I forget?'

'OK, well, we lure him up the path, he falls into the pit, we kill him.'

'I like everything apart from the last. I don't kill. Not unless I have to' Starsky said immediately.

'You were hell bent on breakin' my head a while ago.'

'Different thing.'

Hutch stared. 'Why? How come it's different?'

The brunet shook his head. 'Just outline the plan huh?'

'No. Not until you tell me why you'd kill me and not the guys who are intent on blowing off your head.'

Starsky stopped a moment, seeming to consider. 'They were just doing their job. They were paid to do it, so it wasn't their idea to kill me or you. As for me….. lets just say I chose to come after you. My idea.'

Hutch shook his head. 'Not your idea. Someone planted it there, whether you remember that or not. We're friends Starsk, again whether you remember that or not. We're friends and so far as I know friends don't go around killin' each other.'

Tiredly Starsky shook his head. 'I've only your word that we were friends and right now I'm all out of people to trust so I'm goin' it alone.'

'Does that mean you won't try to kill me?' Hutch asked.

'For now it does. When we get back to the mainland? The jury is still out.'

Hutch gulped. He knew Starsky. He knew that when the brunet set his mind to do something he was like a charging bear. Nothing would stop him. Something about the set of the smaller man's shoulders told Hutch that when they did get back to the mainland he was either going to have to get help, or be very, very careful.

An hour and three quarters later, and fumbling around in the dark, Hutch had finally covered his pit with more greenery. In the dark, the hole in the ground hardly needed any cover and Hutch had warned Starsky to stay back to avoid falling in again. The brunet smirked, but stayed back anyway and finally the blond had the pit and its camouflage to his satisfaction. He stood back and wiped his sweating hands down the sides of his legs.

'What now?' Starsky asked,

'Now we find ourselves a man.'

'Easy enough, considerin' they want to find us.'

'You'd think so, yeah, but I would have thought they'd have come after us by now. After all, he's bound to have found his friend.'

Starsky cocked his head on one side and set off that ache in Hutch's gut. Every move the brunet made was so familiar, so easy……so Starsky. Hutch felt that he had his friend back whenever he saw those familiar gestures and yet when Starsky opened his mouth and started once again to talk of killing Hutch in such a dispassionate way, it made the blond's mouth go dry.

'So what're ya sayin'?' Starsky asked.

'If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed is gonna have to go to the mountain.'

'Meaning?'

'We go find ourselves a bad guy.'

Starsky grinned for the first time that day. He still felt antsy and pumped up, but not as much as he had done that morning. Now, the feelings had faded to a mild anger at the world rather than feeling he needed to rip the head off of the nearest individual. He bowed to Hutch. 'Allow me.'

'What will you do?'

'Look. We need the man in the pit. Even I get that. So I'm gonna go find us a man, bring him back here and voila.'

'As simple as that huh?' Hutch asked, slightly amused.

'Simple as my Ma's blintzes.' For the space of a heartbeat Starsky paused.

'You remembered?' Hutch asked, his mouth gone dry at that familiar pet name being used so casually.

'Yeah…..I think I remember. Mom made the best blintzes on the east coast. See ya later.' The brunet flipped a cheeky salute and was gone into the darkness before Hutch could say anything more.

That moment had been agony for the blond. He was waiting for the flood of memories that would return to Starsky. He was waiting for the smaller man to clutch at his head as he, Hutch had and start to remember after that one word. He was waiting for Starsky to look up at him with those intense blue eyes and tell Hutch how sorry he was and how he remembered everything. Instead Hutch was left feeling empty, alone and just a little scared by the Starsky he was dealing with – a man Hutch knew could be utterly ruthless if the need arose. The blond's heart skipped a beat. Would it truly come down to a fight to the death between them? Could that happen?

And if it did, who would win?

There seemed to be years past as Hutch sat in the dark, alone with his thoughts. The island was quiet. The birds had taken to their beds and only the noise of the cicadas broke the quiet evening. The heat of the day had gone, to be replaced by a gentle warmth and Hutch felt himself drifting away on a tide of weariness as the gentle, warm breeze caressed his overheated skin. In fact he became so relaxed that he jumped as he heard a shout in the distance.

Starsky seemed to have done his job as there was the sound of vegetation cracking underfoot and then more shouts and ominously a gun shot shredded the silence. Instantly Hutch was on his feet peering into the darkness. Caution told him to stay back. Even superman couldn't see well enough to shoot straight in this light, but he did risk a rough shout

'Starsk?'

In answer, there were more footfalls and then a curly headed missile shot into the small clearing, leapt over the pit and stood facing the way he'd come with his hands out, fingers flicking in the time honoured "come get it" sign.

Starsky was closely followed by the final gunman and somehow Starsky seemed to have him so rattled that despite the gun in his hand, the man had not used it to shoot his quarry. Instead, the man charged down the small animal track like a wounded rhino, saw Starsky egging him on and took his last step ontp the loose vegetation and down into the pit.

Immediately both Starsky and Hutch moved forwards, edging closer to the edge to see the man laying in a broken heap at the bottom, his leg folded under him at an odd angle.

'Any holes in you?' Hutch asked quietly as he started to reach down into the pit.

'Not a one. This is hellish effective' Starsky grunted, joining the blond as he hauled the unconscious body of the gunman out and onto the flat ground. 'What do ya wanna do with him now?'

'What I really want to do is wake him up and get him to tell you the truth of what's going on, but we don't have time if we're gonna get to the boat and get back to the mainland by dawn.'

'So we leave him?'

'So we take him back to his friend. We tie them both up together and we get off of this fuckin' island.'

Starsky stood up and dusted off his hands. 'Sounds like a plan. Are you always so decisive?'

Hutch snorted. 'You'd better believe it Pal. Now gimme a hand here. The sooner him and his friend are tied, the sooner we can get out.'

Starsky looked down at the blond man and nodded. So far, he'd gone with what the doctor had told him. Hunt was a drug runner and a killer. He needed to be taken out. So far, Starsky had gone along with Hutch's story of him being a cop just to stop the blond man from talking but now….?

There was still so much confusion and fight left inside the brunet. It was like a cancer, growing and growing until sooner or later it would have to find an escape somewhere, somehow. But right now, the blond – Hutch….Hunt – was right. They needed off the island to finish whatever it was had been started.

Quietly Starsky followed his new found friend, never quite trusting Hutch and never quite relaxing.

There would be time. There was always time.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Once the two gunmen had been put together, checked over and tied securely with Hutch's rope, it was a fairly simple task to walk back to the jetty upon which Hutch had landed. It was good to see the small luxury craft bobbing quietly on the small waves near to the beach and Hutch led Starsky on board. There were no crew and no-one around the two cops to see them cast off the moorings, turn the craft out to sea and gun the engine.

Once or twice the boat went in the wrong direction as Hutch became familiar with the controls, but overall the trip went smoothly, Starsky sitting in the bows and staring out at the ocean as though lost in his own thoughts. There was no conversation. The trip to the mainland did not take long and a half an hour later Hutch aimed the boat at a small secluded inlet and the hull whispered against the white sand just off the beach.

'I can't take it in any further in but if we throw in the anchor we can paddle from here' the blond said, fiddling with the anchor chain so that the lump of metal hit the bottom.

Starsky grunted and picked up his bag and as the anchor bit into the sand, he gently lowered himself over the side and into the water. The effect was immediate as the salt water bit into the various wounds across his body. It was the open wound at his core that seemed to take centre stage however and as another wave lapped against his groin Starsky let out a not too well muffled yelp of pain.

Hutch joined his partner in the water and immediately tried to put his arm around Starsky to support him. Starsky shrugged it away almost angrily, muttered something under his breath and started to wade towards the beach, each step taking him to shallower water although the bite of the salt still brought involuntary tears to his eyes. When he finally reached dry land, the brunet found the closest rock, knelt by it and threw up until he had nothing left in his stomach. While he knelt panting on the powdery soft sand Hutch stood a solicitous distance away, trying to get his bearings. Eventually he approached the ailing brunet.

'Better?'

'Terrific. Where are we?'

'I reckon about fifty miles south of Bay City. We must be close to the Mexican border by now. We should start walking north.'

Starsky looked up. 'Why?'

'Coz north is where home is buddy and once we're home we can get you some help.'

'I don't need help. I can deal all on my own. Tell you what. We get back to the road and then you head north and I'll head south.'

Hutch snorted. 'What good is that gonna do?'

'It'll stop me from killing you.'

That brought the conversation up short and Hutch almost staggered back at the venom in the words before regaining his composure. 'Well that's very big of you Starsk old man.'

Starsky ignored the sarcasm. 'I figured I owed you for getting me off the island, but this don't mean a damned thing. If I see you again Hunt….Hutch….whatever your fuckin' name is, the deals off and you get it between the eyes with both barrels.'

Hutch swallowed hard. He'd felt for sure that once he'd got his partner back to the mainland that Starsky would start to remember something – anything about his past life. Now that seemed like a forlorn hope and it cut like a knife at Hutch's heart, but the blond didn't give up so easily.

'The road's up there' he said quietly, pointing up at the top of a small cliff. There's a path up to the top. See it?'

Something in Starsky's stomach gave a small flip and he ran his tongue over his lower lip thoughtfully. 'Is there another way?'

'Why Starsk? Why ask if there's another way?'

'Coz I don't want to go slitherin' over rocks if there's an easier way.'

'It couldn't be coz you don't like heights?' Hutch prompted.

Starsky did a double take. How did he know? How did this blond know he hated heights? 'Very good. Someone did their homework well' he snarled. 'So I don't like heights. It don't mean I won't climb that cliff though, even if it is only so as I can put distance between me and you.'

'Me and thee' Hutch said carefully.

'Huh?'

'That's what we used to say. We trust me and thee and no-one else.'

Starsky's eyes blazed out of his weary face but there was nothing behind them. Whatever they had done to his friend, the Starsky that Hutch knew was buried very deep inside the frame that seemed so familiar.

'Very pretty.' Starsky mumbled and set off towards the bottom of the cliff.

By the time they had walked and scrambled up the rocks, both men were hot and sweating and not in the best of tempers. Hutch had followed behind Starsky, much to the brunet's distaste, but Hutch did nothing to help his friend climb and by the time they reached the top and could see the road, Starsky's legs were like rubber. He paused at the top, well away from the edge and got his breath.

'Now we're here, why not walk north with me? There's nothing in Mexico for you' Hutch said casually.

The brunet looked up and down the empty road. It was hot and dry and dusty. Framed with small cactus and other plants that kept low to the ground it looked a godforsaken place and the prospect of travelling further south into uncharted areas seemed suddenly crazy. North was home so why not endure the blond a little longer? There may still be time for retribution. Starsky shrugged his shoulders and fell into step beside Hutch. There was silence for a while as each man trudged onwards, nursing their various hurts.

'How did you know how to drive that boat?' Starsky finally broke the silence.

Hutch snickered. 'One of the privileges of living by the lake. Dad had a boat like that that he used to entertain pharmaceutical reps on when he needed them to fund some of his work. I used to bring the chicks down to the lake. It's amazing how boats increase your pulling power.'

'Lucky you. You should have featured in Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' the brunet muttered dryly.

'You like 'em too Starsk, especially when we used to take Terri or Abby out on a fishing trip.'

'Who the hell are Abby and Terri? You can quit the pretence now. We're off the island. You don't have to come up with the cozy stories any more.'

Hutch regarded Starsky sadly and sighed. 'You must be bad if you don't remember Terri. She was the love of your life. Think Starsk. Think. Willowy slim, big, big brown eyes, a giggle that felt like mink down your spine. C'mon partner!'

Starsky stopped walking and closed his eyes feeling suddenly sick to his stomach. This stranger – this Hutch/Hunt person had just described the face that had haunted his dreams since he'd woken up in the hospital. He had no name for her but somehow his mind told Starsky that she was or had been important to him. How the hell would Hutch know of such a girl? Unless the people who found them and sent Hutch to kill him had done some digging and had fed him some answers.

'Where is she, this Terri?' Starsky asked quietly.

A dark cloud passed behind Hutch's eyes. 'She's dead Starsk. She was killed by a flake who wanted you to suffer. I was next on his menu but we took him out.'

The brunet scowled but there was a weight now in the pit of his stomach. 'Why would he do that?'

'Coz we jailed his son for drug running and he died in his cell.'

Starsky's head jerked up. 'Just like Chris? Just like what you did to Chris you bastard.'

Hutch saw the fist coming and ducked out of the way, grabbing Starsky's hand in passing. 'I didn't do anything to Chris. Your brother is called Nicky, not Chris. It's a line they fed you Starsk, just like everything else. They erased your memories and gave you new ones. You're a cop and I'm a cop not a drug runner. Starsk. STARSKY!'

But the brunet was lost back in the world Dr Isaac had brainwashed him into believing. So much had happened to Starsky, so much he didn't understand and he finally snapped, feeling himself going wild as he tried to rain punches down on Hutch's body. Starsky needed revenge, although for what he was not sure any more. He needed answers and he needed to stop feeling that every moment he lived was somehow a lie. He felt as though he were caught in a fairy tale and everyone else knew the ending except him and the feeling made him scared and angry. Just the feel of his fist connecting with flesh however made him feel better – more alive and he laid into the blond with everything he had.

For his own part Hutch tried desperately to defend himself whilst not hurting Starsky too much. Starsky had no such thoughts and Hutch missed the left hook that caught him under the chin and sent his spiralling to the ground. Starsky was immediately upon him and would have finished him off there and then had it not been for the sound of a car engine coming down the road at speed. Starsky hesitated for just a second which gave the Sheriff's Department car just enough time to screech to a halt by the side of the fighting couple.

The two men paused mid swing as the large patrol truck veered off the side of the road in a cloud of dust and a large, sweating fat man in a buff coloured sheriff's uniform got out of the drivers seat and swaggered across the road to them. His partner, a younger man with thin, mousy coloured hair held away from his face by a comb full of grease also eased himself out and stood with his hand resting twitchily on his gun.

'What've we got ourselves here?' the older man asked, chewing on the end of a fat cigar.

Starsky stopped swinging and Hutch pushed him away, coming to his knees. 'It's fine officer. No problem, we're cops….. from Bay City 9th precinct.

'And my partner over there is Santa Claus. Get back down and eat the dirt while I check ya over.'

'There's no need Officer….' Hutch glanced at the badge on the man's shirt '….Officer Freiberger. Just a misunderstanding huh Starsk?'

The brunet pasted a smile onto his face. While he still needed to hit out at something, even with his faulty memories, he knew he didn't want to get caught up in the Sheriff's department. He shook his head but wisely said nothing.

Freiberger was not so convinced however. It had been a slow day and he felt the need for some action and to show these soft townies what it was like in the real world. He shook his head. 'Uh uh. There are enough Mexicanis trying to git into my territory. I don't want no white boys helpin' 'em. I told you to eat dust – both of ya.'

Hutch realised the futility of trying to argue with the fat man, but the antsy feeling that had haunted Starsky for so long still held him and now, with this man throwing his weight around, the brunet's hold on his temper finally failed again. With a roar, he launched himself at Freiberger's legs, knocking the old timer down. Freiberger fell heavily but as the testosterone still swilling through Starsky's system really kicked in, Hutch made a grab for his partner, taking a hold of Starsky's leg to pull him away.

The younger officer also joined in but had no problems in trying not to hurt the fighting brunet. 'Don't you lay a finger on my Pop' he yelled and reached for his night stick, a two foot piece of wood which resembled a baseball bat. He swung at Starsky with the stick but missed the brunet and hit his father on the shin. Freiberger senior let out a yelp and in the commotion that followed Freiberger junior grabbed Starsky by the collar hauled him to his feet and pushed him face down over the hood of the truck.

'Assume the position' the younger man said and to emphasise the point he kicked the brunets legs further apart whilst still keeping Starsky's cheek mashed to the hot metal of the hood. Wisely Starsky stopped struggling and waited as Hutch limped over to them. As the blond got closer, Starsky could see that his hands were cuffed behind his back and Freiberger senior was looking smug.

'We didn't no nuthin' Starsky mumbled. 'You have no right to….' His words were cut off by a rabbit punch to his back and he grunted in pain.

'Just shut your pie hole an be still' Freiberger Junior said, obviously enjoying himself.

'Yes Sir. No problem Sir' Starsky panted, the sarcasm heavy in the air. The sheriff's officer grabbed him, whirled him around so that he was lying on his back across the hood and shoved the stick under Starsky's chin so hard that it threatened to cut off the brunet's airway.

'You think you city types is so clever. Well let's see how you enjoy a night or two as our guests huh? Can we keep 'em Pop? Can we?'

Freiberger senior bent over the brunet's body as Starsky gasped above the stick in his throat and grinned. 'Oh yeah son. I think we can accommodate some friends from out of town.'


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

The ride back to the small wooden building that Freiberger and son used as a local lockup took less than fifteen minutes, which was as well as both Hutch and Starsky were handcuffed and in the back of the truck, open to the elements, the sun and the insects. By the time the truck pulled up outside the Sheriff's office, both men were sweating and had swallowed more flies than they cared to count. Freiberger junior let down the tailgate of the truck and stood back as Hutch jumped down from the vehicle and waited for his partner to follow. For a moment Starsky did not move.

For the past five minutes or so Starsky had been lost in a world of his own, thinking about everything that had gone on since he'd gone to the island with Dr Isaac. The huge final dose of testosterone that Isaac had given him was beginning to wear off. Hutch's smaller dose had gone from his system hours earlier leaving the blond clear headed and now the natural hormone was leaving Starsky's bloodstream too. Far from leaving the brunet clear headed though, the smaller man was just plain tired, exhausted as never before and craving rest. His thoughts were still a shambles. For Starsky there was no slow beginning of memories returning. Whatever quirk of fate had allowed Hutch's mind to resist the brainwashing techniques and default back to its original settings was not shared by the brunet. Starsky was still adrift on a sea of black emptiness, his mind remembering only the hospital, his friend Dr Isaac and the pretty nurses who had cared for him so solicitously.

With his weariness also came another strange feeling and one that left him more confused than ever. So far, whenever he had looked at Hutch all he had seen had been a target – a man to kill as soon as he could. That in itself had been sufficient motive to get himself back together and despite his injuries, Starsky had made himself continue working through his pain so that he could get the job done. Now, he was suddenly unsure. For some reason, now that he was exhausted, hurting and lost, the brunet felt as though he should lean on Hutch emotionally. It was an almost indescribable feeling of knowing that Hutch would take care of him, no matter what. It was a comforting feeling and yet at the same time it made the skin on Starsky's belly crawl, to think that he would allow himself to be cared for by the man he'd spent so long trying to kill.

Insane. That was it! He was finally going insane. Flashes of that pretty girl's face flitted through his head. She was smiling at him, her big brown eyes twinkling with humour. She was saying something to him, but Starsky couldn't hear her and she was too far away for him to be able to read her lips. It seemed important that he listen to her and yet so much more was going on around him. Another face came into his head. In the brunet's mind, Hutch stood beside Starsky, dressed in a black suit and (stupidly) holding a teddy bear. Hutch looked sad and as Starsky turned back to the girl with the huge eyes, she faded away, pointing at Hutch. The feeling of loss was so strong that Starsky swallowed down a sob and shook himself just in time to hear Freiberger senior ordering him out of the truck. With his arms pinned behind him by the cuffs and the centre of his body on fire, Starsky gritted his teeth and jumped down from the tailgate, landing hard on the ground and doubling himself over as he tried to deal with the shooting pains lancing through the family jewels.

Hutch moved over to his buddy. 'Breathe Starsk. We're gonna be ok. Just breathe past it huh?'

In shock, Hutch watched as Starsky, still doubled over, rested the top of his curly head against Hutch's stomach for just a moment. The touch was like a jolt of electricity through the blond and for a second the power of speech left him. Finally, after leaning into the brunet, he managed to form words. 'Starsk, is that you? Do you remember?'

Starsky straightened, suddenly embarrassed and angry at himself for being weak, although the touch had somehow felt so right, as though he'd done the same thing before. The feeling rocked him and shocked him. He took a deep breath and took a step backwards as if distancing himself from the blond.

'No to both' he muttered. 'I don't know what you've done to me, but it won't work. As soon as we're out of this place I'm putting as much distance as I can between me and you. I don't trust you.' The lie made him feel better and Starsky straightened himself up and followed the two Freibergers inside the wooden building and around the front desk to a small office at the back. Hutch watched as Starsky limped slowly to the side of the desk and stood impassively, his head down and his eyes staring at the ground. The blond came to stand by his partner and together they waited for Freiberger senior and junior to come into the room.

The younger of the two officers stood at the back of, and between Starsky and Hutch, his hand resting on the stick he'd used so readily on the brunet out on the deserted road. Both men tried to keep their eye on the youngster whilst also watching Freiberger senior. The older man swaggered around to the chair at the back of the desk and lowered himself into it with an exaggerated sigh. The Sheriff took time to take his gun out of its holster and lay it down on the polished top of the desk, remove his tie and unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt, revealing a mess of greying hair sprouting from his chest. Finally satisfied that he was as comfortable as he could get, Freiberger looked up as though seeing the two prisoners for the first time.

Hutch cleared his throat. He'd had dealings with guys like Frieberger before and knew he should watch what he said. The papers were full of stories of these jumped up Sheriffs who liked to take the law into their own hands. They were cops who couldn't cut it in the real world and so found the quietest little town around and built their own empire based on greed, threats and bribes. The blond took a deep breath.

'If you'd let me make a phone call….' Hutch started.

'I know, I know. All this'll be explained if you can just talk to your fancy pants lawyer back in the city' Freiberger snapped. God how he despised these soft, city types and their fancy ways.

'I was going to ask you to…' Hutch tried again.

'Shudup!' the Sheriff snarled. 'When I ask you to talk you can talk. Up until that moment you shut your pie hole and listen. Do you have that boy?'

'Loud and clear. Sir.' Hutch put as much sarcasm he could into the last word but the sentiment seemed lost on Freiberger who grinned and seemed pleased with the title.

'I'm in charge here, and don't you forget it' he snapped.

'Yes Sir' the blond cast a sideways look at Starsky and prayed that for once the brunet wouldn't open his mouth. It was usually at times like this that his partner's patience snapped and he started mouthing off. This time, however, the curly haired man remained uncharacteristically silent. In fact, Starsky seemed to be lost in a world of his own and was swaying on his feet, blood leaving a sticky trickle down the inside of his left thigh.

Freiberger paused for a moment, expecting an argument where none came. Finally he picked up a pen and reached for a pad of forms from the drawer of his desk. He licked the tip of the pen thoughtfully.

'We'll start with you blondie. What's your name?'

'Hutchinson. Ken Hutchinson. I'm a cop with the….'

Freiberger fixed him with a stare. 'I only want your name' he interrupted and bent over the form, scribbling down Hutch's name on the requisite line, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Eventually he looked up again and focused on Starsky.

'And you? What's your name boy?'

Starsky jumped slightly as though he'd been lost in his thoughts. 'Ethan Quade' he mumbled automatically.

Hutch shook his head. 'He isn't well. His name is Starsky. David Starsky.'

Freiberger senior looked up from his form and scowled. 'I don't take kindly to punks who play games with me boy. I'll ask again. What's your name?'

At his back, Freiberger junior grinned and licked his lips excitedly. Slowly, like a predatory animal circling its prey, the younger officer moved to stand almost in front of the handcuffed brunet. 'My Pop asked you your name' he said.

'An' I told him. He aint deaf is he?' Starsky grunted.

The young officer slapped Starsky across the face. It was a stinging blow and it rocked the brunet on his heels and yet the pain cleared Starsky's mind of his confusion of thoughts and he fixed the Sheriff with defiant eyes.

'What's your name boy?' Freiberger senior asked again.

'Ethan Quade, and I aint your boy.'

Again the younger officer slapped Starsky's face, this time catching the brunet with his nail and opening a small cut below Starsky's cheek bone. Hutch took a step closer until he was almost touching shoulders with his partner and glared at the older man.

'His name is Dave Starsky. I'm Ken Hutchinson. We're both cops with the 9th precinct in Bay City. Phone Captain Harold Dobey and he'll confirm what I've said' the blond said in a rush.

Freiberger senior looked confused. 'Then why is he sayin' he's this Quade guy?'

Hutch shook his head. 'It's a long story and you wouldn't believe it.'

'Try me.'

'I don't' have time to explain, even if I could.'

'You messin' with me boy? Coz if you are….'

Hutch sighed and tried to keep a hold on his temper. 'Look, just ring Dobey and he'll confirm who we are.'

Freiberger senior turned his attention back to Starsky. 'You want me to ring this Dobey?'

Starsky returned the look without blinking. The name meant nothing to him and although he still had the sickening feeling that he was living a lie, his survival instincts told him to trust no-one until he had answers. For all he knew, Hutch/Hunt could be leading him into a trap. He shook his head. 'I dunno.'

'Are you Quade or Starsky?' the Sheriff asked.

'I dunno. Quade…..Starsky…..it don't matter. Just get these fuckin' cuffs off of me an' I'll be outa your hair.'

This time Freiberger junior rabbit punched Starsky across his back over his kidneys. 'Don't you mess with my Pop' the younger man snarled, catching the sagging brunet by the shoulders. Starsky's patience finally snapped and he fixed the younger man with a defiant glare.

'I bet he can mess with himself just fine. He don't need me to help' the brunet muttered just as the young Sheriff's officer brought his knee up hard until it connected with Starsky's bleeding and bruised core The brunet gave a muffled scream and fell heavily to the ground as Hutch came to stand over him.

'Lay one more finger on him an' I'll have your badge and your little empire quicker than you can say LAPD' he snarled. 'You listen to me and you listen good. We're cops. We're partners and we've been undercover.' Hutch searched for a story that would seem plausible. 'The job turned sour and now we need to get back to the city to report back to our Captain. My partner was brainwashed. He's sick and now he's injured too. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna unfasten these handcuffs so that I can tend to my partner, you're gonna get a doctor here to check him over and you're gonna phone Harold Dobey and tell him to send a car to pick us up. You got that?'

Freiberger senior scowled, uneasy at the way this blond prisoner seemed so at home at issuing orders. 'Now just a cotton pickin'…..'

Hutch interrupted him, his temper finally lost. 'I said have you got that? Huh?'

Reluctantly the Sheriff reached for the telephone.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

David Starsky awoke slowly from the dream he was having. In the dream he was standing in an alleyway. The ground was littered with garbage and there was the rank, acrid smell of decaying food in the air. At the side of the alleyway was an iron fire escape and two steps at its base and as Starsky watched his dream unfold, he saw himself as if he was a spectator, collapsing down onto one of those steps clutching at his belly. Immediately the man who called himself Hutch was at his side, pulling him forwards into an embrace until his head fell against Hutch's chest. It was not the embrace of a lover nor even the casual touch of a friend. The embrace held more emotion than words could ever express and as Starsky watched his dream end, he thought he saw a single tear leave Hutch's eye and work its lonely way down the blond's face.

The dream changed until Starsky was standing at the mouth of another alleyway, this time with a gun in his hand. The hunk of metal felt heavy and reassuring in his grip and Starsky clung to it as though his life depended on it. Men were chasing him -bad men and they had Hutch and himself cornered. He needed to escape and he needed to fire his gun on order to do that. It was then that he heard the voices around him and consciousness chose that moment to intervene.

'I told you to back off man.' Hutch's voice held an edge of temper that seemed out of place in Starsky's dream.

'Why? Is he your bitch? Don't you wanna share his ass with us? We'll treat him real kind, won't we Esteban?' It was another, unfamiliar voice, heavily accented and close enough for Starsky to smell tostadas in the air. The brunet grasped the metal of the gun harder and opened his eyes a fraction to find that in reality the "gun" was the iron bar of a barred cage. He was lying on the floor, his side against the bars and Hutch was kneeling at his other side, putting his body between Starsky and the two huge men who shared the cell with them.

'I told ya to back off, so back off. You want a piece of him, then you have to come through me' Hutch growled again

Groggily Starsky attempted to sit up, using the bars of the cell for leverage. He managed to achieve the correct position although the fire in his crotch had now turned his flesh into molten lava and there was a fresh coating of blood on his already encrusted shorts. For a second Starsky thought that maybe the men had already had a piece of him and then he remembered the moment in Freiberger's office when the younger officer had driven his knee into Starsky's balls and the world had winked out.

The curly headed man groaned and leaned heavily against the iron bars, his eyes closed as he dealt with the pains assaulting his senses. He felt, rather than saw a movement and suddenly there was a sound of flesh meeting flesh. Starsky looked up just in time to see that one of the big men – he looked Mexican – had tried to get closer to Starsky and Hutch had punched him in the face.

As Starsky looked on like a spectator at a boxing match, the other Mexican came to join his friend in the fight. Man #1 swung a fist at Hutch who caught it in his hand and used the momentum of the blow to swing his opponent around to cannon into man #2. Man #1's body sent the two of them reeling away to crash against the bars, both men surprised that the blond had such quick reactions. There was a moment of stunned silence. As the Mexicans stood at the far side of the cell, Hutch turned to Starsky and squatted down by the side of the brunet. Hutch's nose was bleeding and there was a cut above the blond's right eye allowing blood to trickle down the side of his face and drip from his chin onto his tee shirt. Obviously this was not the first time their cell mates had tried to get closely acquainted with the brunet.

'Welcome to the Hilton' Hutch muttered dryly as he continued to keep one eye on the two muttering Mexicans.

'You could've asked for the executive suite' Starsky mumbled quietly.

Hutch snickered. 'This is the executive suite. How're ya feeling buddy?'

Starsky avoided Hutch's piercing crystal blue eyes. The blond's gaze was disconcerting. There was so much compassion and need in those eyes that it made Starsky hurt more than his abused family jewels. 'M good.'

'Like hell you are. It must hurt like hell. Can you keep awake for a while? Those goons just don't give up. For some reason they seem to think I'm gonna pimp you out.'

'Imagine that!' Starsky muttered. 'I can keep awake. Looks to me like you need some rest. Why are we here?'

'Sheriff Freiberger's revenge. I dunno Starsk.' Hutch wiped at the blood dripping from the cut of his forehead with his forearm and sank back to sit beside the brunet with his back against the bars, his eyes never leaving the two sulking Mexicans opposite.

'Why did you do it?' Starsky asked softly, his own eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.

'What?'

'Why'd ya fight 'em off?'

Hutch sighed, closed his eyes, and let his head fall back until it was resting against the cool metal of the bars. There was a tired resignation in his voice as though he knew that Starsky was no easy fix. 'It's what we do' he said in a strained voice.

'I don't get it.'

'I know you don't buddy. Right now I don't get it either. I don't know how I can make you believe me when I say we're cops, we're partners and we have been for going on 6 years. Those guys who took us Starsk, those guys who put us in their hospital…. They aren't the good guys. We are. We're the good guys and somehow you've gotta believe me. You are Dave Starsky. Ethan Quade doesn't exist except in your head.

'He feels real to me' Starsky said. 'I don't know a Dave Starsky. To me he's the fiction, just like you are. I don't know a Ken Hutchinson. In my world you're Ray Hunt, you killed my baby brother.'

Hutch shifted position so that he could look Starsky in the eye. 'Is that what you still believe Starsk? Is it?'

The brunet looked away. 'I don't know what to believe any more. A doctor comes an' tells me about a family that I have. He tells me that my brother was killed by a man and that he can get me within killing distance of that man. He tells me my name; my life, coz I have no memories of my own and he gives me back an identity. Then you come along and you aren't the kinda guy I thought you were and however hard I want to kill my brother's murderer, I can't. You won't let me.'

'You tried' Hutch said, with feeling.

For the first time Starsky turned and looked, really looked into Hutch's eyes. 'I tried but I couldn't. Every time I had the chance something inside me stopped me from taking that final step.'

'What does that tell you Starsk? Just take a step back and listen to your feelings. I told you we were more than friends' Hutch said softly.

'Friends? I dunno. I dunno anything any more. The line they gave me in hospital was so real. They said I was Army. I can feel that. It seems so right. Now you tell me I'm a cop and you're my partner but I don't get any feel from that at all. I don't have memories of you or bein' a cop or any of that shit. What am I supposed to think huh? Who am I supposed to trust. And don't come that "me and you" shit coz I'm way past the shmaltz.'

Hutch sighed. For one agonising moment he thought that Starsky's memories were returning. For the first time in a long time he'd seen the softer, friendlier side of the brunet and hope had sprung up in his chest. Now he felt as though a pail of iced water had been thrown over him. What he took to be the return of memories was just more confusion heaped on Starsky's head and he knew it was no use forcing the issue. Whether Starsky was "himself" or not, Hutch knew the more he pushed the brunet the more Starsky would dig his heels in.

Without another word, the blond pulled himself up using the bars for support and yelled at the closed door opposite. 'Hey Sheriff! I have the right to a phone call. I wanna make it now.'

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'What do you mean they escaped?'

'I mean that two of your goons are in my clinic right now having their heads fixed. It took them a day to find their radio and ask for help in getting of the island. Meanwhile Starsky and Hutch are gone.'

'Shit' Mr Lake looked across the mahogany topped desk at Dr Isaac who returned his gaze balefully. Both men knew the cost of failing Mr Da Luca. Both men had seen the horror and heard the final screams of the men who were wedged into brand new freeway bridge works while the hot cement was poured around them so that it filled their eyes and ears and finally closed in over the tops of their heads.

'Shit is right. You trusted those men. Your words to me were "we'll never see Starsky and Hutch alive again". So much for your idea. What do we do now?'

Mr Lake put down the brochure of the mansion house he had picked out in Brooklyn. The palace had five bedrooms, five bathrooms, six acres of prime land and a view of the bridge. He sighed deeply, knowing that his plans of a secure and comfortable future were washing away like a wave through grains of sand.

'You seem to have all the big ideas' he told Isaac bitterly. 'Maybe your plans will work better than mine.'

'Well at least I don't rely on men whose education stopped at the first grade.'

'Fine. Tell me your plan or we both end up in the bay wearing concrete overshoes.'

Isaac smiled grimly. 'I plan to live a long and happy retirement. What Mr Da Luca doesn't know won't hurt him. For the moment we have the luxury of time on our side. I've been studying their files again and I think I may have something.'

Lake sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. 'Wanna share?'

'Starsky is ex army. He had a tour in 'Nam and for a while he was the guest of the Viet Cong – four months in fact before he was rescued. They didn't treat him too well according to the army notes I managed to get a hold of. It took another nine months of therapy to get him back on his feet. The Viet Cong used mind control on him as well as physical abuse and whilst he was recovering he became dependant on one of his doctors.'

'A real bad ass soldier huh?'

'Like you say. So we use that to our advantage. Hutchinson was nowhere near as compliant as Starsky when they were at the clinic. If anyone has broken the conditioning it'll be the blond one. Even if Hutchinson has convinced Starsky that he is who he is, it'd be the work of an hour or so to get Starsky's conditioning back on track.'

'Great. So?' Lake still looked as though he needed to be convinced.

'So I know where Starsky lives. Sooner or later he's gonna go home and when he does….. Well I haven't made a house call in years, but I could make an exception in this case.'

Mr Lake sat forwards in his chair. 'Can you really make this work?' he asked. 'Cos this isn't just your ass on the line. I want a long and happy retirement too.'

Dr Isaac snickered grimly. 'If you don't get one, it won't be for the want of trying. Give me another 48 hours. If Mr Da Luca asks, it's your job to stall him. Leave the technical stuff to me huh.'

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The glowing yellow button on the telephone winked mockingly at Harold Dobey and then the phone rang and he jumped.

Almost angrily the big black man reached for the receiver. 'Dobey.'

Minnie's voice sounded down the line, excitement and anticipation colouring her usually calm voice. 'Phone call for you Captain. It's um…. It's Hutch. They're fine! They're ok!'

Dobey's eyebrows shot up and he spilled the coffee from the cup he'd been holding. Frantically he dabbed at the scalding hot fluid with his hanky. 'Well put him through, don't keep the man waiting' he blustered, trying hard to keep a professional attitude. A moment later a familiar voice sounded down the line.

'Cap'n?'

'Hutchinson! What the fuck? Where are you? Where the hell have you been? Is Starsky there?'

'It's a long story Cap but both me and Starsk are here…..kinda. We're at the Sheriff's office in Rock Ridge, about 70 miles south of Bay City. Can you send a car for us?'

'I can do better than that! I can…..' Dobey's voice died as he thought of the visit he'd had from the Feds only two days ago. The suits had told him that they were officially treating Starsky and Hutchinson's disappearance as suspicious and they had grounds to believe that both officers were connected to the sudden death of one Joe Durniak. However hard Dobey had tried to convince them otherwise, the two Feds had left the captain in no doubt that if seen, both Starsky and his partner would be arrested on sight.

'Don't ask questions now but I'm gonna ask Huggy Bear to come get you' Dobey said,

'Huggy?' Hutch's voice held more questions than could be put into words. Usually Dobey despised Huggy like nothing else and it was a huge surprise that the Captain should send the barman rather patrolmen.

'What's goin' on?' Hutch asked.

'Nothin' for you to worry about. Just sit tight till Huggy gets there huh? And Hutchinson?'

'Yeah?'

'It's good to hear your voice again' Dobey said softly. The phone went dead and Hutch was left holding the receiver and wondering about the conversation he'd just had.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

True to his word, Dobey phoned Huggy Bear the moment he got off of the phone with Hutch. To say the lanky barman was over the moon was an understatement and there was no hiding the "I told you so" in his voice as he spoke with the Captain.

'Are they ok?' Huggy asked.

'I guess so. Hutchinson didn't have a lot of time, but he said they were both waiting, so I suggest you get your skinny little ass down to Rock Ridge and pick 'em up.'

'But Cap'n, what's the rush? According to you they're dead anyway, or at least they were last time we spoke. I think that was the time you told me to get out of your office?'

Dobey sighed. Yes, he had given up on his men and yes, Huggy was right, although he'd never give the bartender the satisfaction of knowing that the time had come for him to retire. Maybe he and Edith needed a nice rest on some remote Caribbean island. Maybe he should just get his ass back into gear! 'Huggy do you want the job or not?'

There was a snicker down the line. 'I'm gone Cap'n. You're talking to a ghost. See you in a few hours huh?' the line went dead and Dobey was left holding the receiver to his ear and trying to get over the fact that he had been so ready to write off his two finest detectives. He took a deep breath, knowing he had things to do and the first one was to make phone calls. For the next hour he spoke with Rachel Starsky and Richard Hutchinson, explaining that their sons had been found and that no, it was no use flying back to LA until they knew what shape those same sons were in.

Omission is a great thing. It saves honest cops from telling lies or at least not telling the full truth. It would have been too cruel to tell both sets of parents that their offspring had been saved only to be arrested by the FBI on suspicion of one of the biggest murders the country had seen since JFK.

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By the time Huggy Bear had found the small one horse town called Rock Ridge and had pulled up outside the sheriff's office, Hutchinson and Starsky had been processed, released and were waiting quietly out by the front desk for their ride to arrive.

Not once during the past hour and a half had Starsky asked about arrangements for their transfer. Neither had he asked where they were going, although at the same time, he'd put up no argument about being kept out of the loop and Hutch decided that this was most definitely a step forwards. The brunet sat on one of the hard chairs in the sheriff's front office with his head in his hands staring morosely at the floor in between his bare feet.

For the most part, Starsky's head was pleasantly blank. Too much had happened in too short a time for the curly haired cop to process it all at once. He had woken up in that hospital bed only a few weeks earlier to be told that he was Ethan Quade, a bomb disposal expert with the Army and also a vigilante out for revenge on the man who killed his baby brother. He had been handed that murderer on a plate but try as he might, Starsky had not been able to deliver the final coup de grace. Whenever he'd got close enough; whenever he'd had his hands tightening around Hutch's throat, something hidden deep inside his mind would stop him from the final act. And every time he failed to kill Hutch/Hunt, a little piece of Starsky died inside. When Hutch started to try to explain that he was Dave Starsky and not Ethan Hunt the brunet had rebelled. It wasn't right! This murderer; this drug runner was telling him who he was? Starsky didn't think so and for a while he'd refuelled his hate of the blond, waiting for the right moment to exact his revenge. But with every passing act of kindness; with every time that a fist connected with Hutch's body rather than his own, Starsky's attitude was changing. He was still not convinced that he was a cop called Starsky from Bay City, or that his own brother was called Nicky and was alive and well in New York, but he was more inclined to believe that Hutch was no murderer and that somehow he knew Starsky. What hurt the most was that this blond guy with the crystal blue eyes that gazed so earnestly at the brunet seemed to know Starsky better than Starsky knew himself.

So it was that with the final arrest and ill treatment from Freiberger and son the brunet's mind had decided that enough was enough and had shut down to just the basics of keeping his lungs and heart working and his limbs moving when commanded.

Hutch paced the small office nursing the skinned and bleeding knuckles of his right hand. For the most part he too remained quiet. There were so many things he wanted to say to the sheriff and his son and yet what was the point? He was on the man's turf and no amount of yelling or sarcasm would shake Freiberger from believing that no-one should disturb his empire, and so Hutch paced, Starsky sat quietly and Freiberger senior glared balefully at both men. Eventually the door opened and Huggy walked in making Starsky jump slightly. Freiberger looked up and winced.

'I should've known you'd have a goddamned nigger somewhere' the old timer muttered.

Huggy ignored the remark and cast a worried eye over Hutch and then Starsky who was still sitting head down on the chair furthest away. Seeing that at least Hutch was on his feet, even if he was bruised and battered and walking with a pronounced limp, Huggy's attention turned to Starsky.

'Hey Starsk my man. Good to see you alive.' He waited for the retort that should have followed the remark but none came. Instead Starsky hardly moved other than to nod slightly. Huggy cast a questioning look at Hutch as though to ask what the hell was going on. The blond was about to answer when Freiberger interrupted.

'I don't suppose you can write, nigger? I need someone to sign release papers.'

Huggy ignored the man and concentrated on Hutch. 'Is he ok?' he asked.

'Starsk isn't feeling too good right now. Come to thing of it, neither am I. We need to get outa here Hug. Will you do the honours?' Hutch indicated the form and the pen Freiberger was holding.

Huggy grinned and touched his woolly forelock suddenly bending over slightly and cringing. 'Sure ting boss. Please don't send me back to no plantation boss. I'll do anyting.' The black man pantomimed in a passable impersonation of a black slave worker.

Hutch grinned. 'Just sign the fuckin' papers Kunta Kinte' he muttered as Huggy took the pen and signed their release with a flourish.

The ride back to Bay City wasn't long. Starsky had followed Huggy and Hutch into the car without question and whilst Hutch sat up front with Huggy, the brunet sat in the back of the Oldsmobile and stared out of the window at the passing scenery in the hope that something would jog his memories into life again. It seemed to say something to the curly haired man that he allowed himself to get into a strange car with Hutch and an unfamiliar man without any question when no more than a day ago he'd been planning to kill the blond. What hold did Hutch have over him? And what were the blond man's intentions once they got to their destination? Come to think about it – what was their destination?

In the front of the car the two men kept their voices low as they discussed what had happened. Hutch made no secrets of their experiences and as Hutch had been honest with him, Huggy filled the blond in with as much detail as he could about what had been going on back in Bay City.

'My God! You mean we've been gone over 6 weeks?' Hutch asked, scrubbing hands down his face.

'Yup. Dobey was planning your memorial services.'

'Shit!'

'Uh huh. We um…..we had an argument about you guys.'

Hutch looked sideways at the driver, seeing that Huggy's face held no humour. 'Wanna tell me?' he asked.

Huggy cleared his throat. 'Seems like your cap'n was about to throw in the towel. There'd been no news about the two of you and the Feds were sniffin' around. I told Dobey that I knew you were still alive and that it was too early to be planning posthumous medals.'

Hutch snickered. 'I bet that went down well.'

Huggy grinned briefly. 'You'll never know. What's the story with Curly? He don't seem up to his usual self.'

The blond's face fell and he sighed, his voice lowered to barely a whisper. 'They did him over real well Hug, to the point where he wanted to kill me and damned near succeeded. The sad thing is that for a while there, I wanted to kill him too.'

'You mean you were brainwashed? I thought you said you were in a hospital.'

'Both, and I think you know where I'm heading with this.'

Huggy swallowed hard. 'You think Nash has something to do with this?'

'Not Nash, but the guys who worked Nash over. When we get back I need to tell Dobey, we need to speak to Terry again and we need to get a team together.'

Huggy cast a look into the rear view mirror. Starsky was slumped on the back seat, his head back and his eyes staring fixedly at the cream coloured ceiling of the car. The black man shook his head. 'I think you can count Starsky out.'

'I think I need to get Starsk some help – some real help. He's lost, he's scared and I hate to admit it, but he's still dangerous.'

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The homecoming at the Metro was a low key affair, in fact Dobey met the two detectives at the back door to the parking lot and led them directly down to the small subterranean area used by the police surgeon when he was on duty. On this particular afternoon the police captain had called Doctor Herman in so that he could give Dobey his professional opinion about his two men.

Quietly Hutch allowed the doctor to examine him, give him arnica cream for his bruises and an antibiotic shot for his cuts. Finally, after half an hour with Herman and with his knuckles taped, Hutch emerged from the small consulting room to see Starsky sat in the far corner of the waiting room, back in his usual posture of head in hands and eyes closed. Hutch cast a questioning look at Dobey who shook his head and whispered 'He hasn't said a word. He doesn't know me, or Huggy or the building. Hug got so uptight I sent him upstairs for coffee.'

Hutch nodded. 'It's ok Cap. If anyone can help Doc Herman can.' The blond walked over to Starsky and stopped a couple of paces away, careful not to crowd the brunet.

'Starsk the doc wants to see you.'

'I don't need no Doctor. I just need to get outa here.'

'Like hell. Starsk you're in even worse shape than me and I hurt like hell. C'mon buddy, at least get yourself checked over huh?'

Uncertainly, Starsky heaved himself to his feet. Hutch was right, he felt like shit and hurt more than he wanted anyone to know. He had expected to feel trapped by the imposing Metro station and yet although he didn't recognise the building or the men and women who worked there, there was a feeling of comfort to the place. It was at once familiar and yet disconcerting to feel that way about somewhere Starsky thought he'd never been before.

Too many feelings. Too much to take in all at once and as Doctor Herman came to the door of the small treatment room, Starsky made his decision and docilely followed the doctor inside but as the medic started to close the door, panic set in and Starsky whirled suddenly.

'Don't' he almost yelled, his eyes wild.

Herman held up his hands. 'Ok Sergeant. We can do this with the door open. That's not a problem. Now, do you want to tell me what hurts the most, or um….maybe I don't need to guess' the doctor said with a small smile as his eyes were drawn to Starsky's blood encrusted shorts.

For the next hour the brunet allowed the doctor to see to his wounds. Some of the coral cuts on his back were septic and needed antibiotic powders, his ankle had swollen to twice its normal size and needed strapping, but the most damage was to the centre of Starsky's body which was blackened with bruising and rusty red with dried blood. As Doc Herman carefully tended to his wounds, Starsky lay back passively and tried to relax. Outside he heard Hutch and the man Hutch called Dobey talking.

'So, from the top, tell me what happened.'

Hutch's voice sighed. 'We were in the car going to Durniak's funeral. Somehow the brake lines were cut, I'm sure of it coz Starsk lost control. The next part is kinda fuzzy, but I remember being dragged out of the wreckage and waking up in a hospital. So far as I can recall they healed me and brainwashed me all at the same time. They must have done the same thing to Starsk too. They fed me a line about him being a rapist who'd raped and killed my little sister and it was so damned real that for a while I um….. I tried to kill him Cap'n. I tried to kill Starsky and he sure s hell tried to kill me.'

Dobeys' voice. 'So what now?'

'So now we find the bastards and we bring 'em to trial.'

'Fine except you have no idea who they are.'

'Then we start working the streets. Someone's gotta know something. We're cops for Christ's sake.'

Dobey's voice sounded doubtful. 'You mean the both of you working together?'

Another heavier sigh. 'I dunno. Whatever they did to us, for some reason Starsk can't shake it like I could. He's lost Cap'n. He's still locked in the world they fed him.'

'What do you want me to do? Do we lock him up? Do we….'

Starsky had had enough of being discussed as though he were a common criminal. Doc Herman had just put the finishing touches to the anaesthetic he'd injected into Starsky's groin and almost angrily the brunet pushed the medic away, lurched off the bed and headed for the door. As he appeared at the entrance Hutch and Dobey stopped their conversation and turned.

'How're ya feelin'?' Hutch asked quietly.

'Fine' Starsky snapped. 'So you tell me I'm a cop. What do we do now?'

Hutch looked quickly at Dobey. 'Right now I take you home and we get some rest. Maybe once you're back at your place you'll start to remember.'

Starsky plastered a smile on his face. 'Sounds like a plan.'

'And then tomorrow we start looking for a guy called Terry Nash' Hutch finished.

It was at that point that Dobey drew Hutch to one side and lowered his voice once more. 'I wasn't gonna tell you this right now but……'

Hutch stared. 'What? What weren't you gonna tell me?'

Dobey looked at the ground, unable to meet Hutch's eyes. 'Terry Nash was pulled out of the docks this morning. He's been dead maybe a day and um….. whatever you and Starsky are gonna do, make it quick and make it silent coz the Feds want to arrest the two of you for murder.'

'Well that's just peachy!'

'Aint it so. I'll keep 'em off of your tails as long as I can, but Hutchinson, you're gonna have to work fast and you're gonna have to work on your own. If ever there was a time for you and Starsky to work together……'

Hutch looked at the distrust in his buddy's eyes and his heart sank. 'We'll be just fine Cap. Thanks for what you've done so far.'


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

Hutch borrowed one of the unmarked police cars from the parking lot and drove slowly back to Ridgeway as Starsky sat looking out of the window. For the most part, the smaller man remaimed quiet although now, far from being pleasantly numb, his head was a whirl of thoughts ranging from the thought that he was living a lie to the slowly blossoming idea that he may have been fed a line by Doctor Isaac, just as Hutch had suggested.

The metro…..cop shop….headquarters……call it what you will felt so much like home to Starsky and there was no denying that every person they met there, from the big black police Captain to the janitor seemed to know him. Whilst Starsky had been willing to believe that he was in the middle of some huge set up, even his delusional mind had to admit that having the whole of the building populated by people acting as though they knew him was too far fetched even for the biggest con artist.

And then there was the man sitting at his side, hands feeding the steering wheel confidently through his hands and eyes fixed steadily on the road. Only the day before Starsky had believed with every fibre in his body that this blond man was Ray Hunt, drug runner and murderer of innocents. With every passing minute however, that conviction was waning, ebbing away like the early morning tide. Too much had happened in too short a space of time for Hutch to be lying. It was not only the fact that the blond seemed to know all about him – that would have been easy to orchestrate, but even a hardened con man would have been crazy to take the blows and the punishment meted out by the two Mexicans in that cell earlier. Starsky had seen the punches and had winced inwardly at the sounds of fists hitting Hutch's body. No-one in their right mind would take all that just to keep up the appearance of friendship.

What convinced Starsky most of all, however was not the physical. Sure Hutch was solicitous, kind, caring. That seemed almost a given. But kind and caring didn't even begin to describe the feelings that deep down Starsky felt for this man. Part of his anger earlier had been fuelled by those feelings which Starsky had denied and buried deep inside. The brunet was angry at himself to begin with. Who in hell would feel that kind of connection with their brother's killer? Why should he feel so protective about a man he'd only just met? When Hutch had explained all about the lies, the hospital and the doctor, Starsky had reacted so violently because of confusion. So much rang true of what Hutch had told him and yet he'd been told he was Ethan Quade.

And he'd been told he should kill Hutch.

Starsky rested his forehead against the cool glass of the car window and closed his eyes. Who was he? He didn't feel that the mantle of Quade fit him any more and yet he was still floundering around in the dark when it came to Dave Starsky. He didn't know that cop any more than he knew the President of the United States. Both were names and only names, but now the brunet was supposed to fill Starsky's shoes without ever having had the chance to know the guy.

Lost in his brooding, it took a moment for Starsky to realise that the car had stopped and that Hutch was getting out of the drivers door. The brunet roused himself from his thoughts and looked up at an apartment set up above a garage in a quiet leafy street. The car was parked beneath a tree and there were white steps leading up to a front door. It might well have been Fort Knox for all Starsky recognised and yet Hutch was waiting at the bottom of the steps for him to get out of the car.

'Welcome home' the blond said.

'Your home?'

'Yours buddy. C'mon, get inside and maybe being around familiar stuff will help you remember.'

Starsky closed the car door and took a deep breath. As though walking through a dream, he walked up the steps and through his front door into a small and exceedingly tidy living room. There was a balloon backed wicker chair, a dark wood room divider with books, photos and knick-knacks and a large comfortable sofa covered by a colourful native American blanket. Starsky stood just inside the door and looked around, hoping that something would trigger a memory.

Hutch seemed at home and was in the small kitchen putting coffee into a percolator and doing small domestic things leaving the brunet alone with his thoughts. Curiously he started to explore, picking up ornaments, examining them and replacing them as though he didn't want the owner of the house to know he'd been snooping. Except he seemed to be the owner of the house and he most definitely wasn't snooping. The only thing that seemed in the least bit familiar was the tidiness although here, like at the metro, he felt a sense of belonging and finally, with the local anaesthetic wearing off in the centre of his body, he sat down carefully on the corner of the settee, wedged into the cushions as though they were a security blanket, and waited for Hutch to come back with two mugs of coffee.

The blond man set them down on the coffee table and sat down on the easy chair opposite Starsky.

'Well? How's it feel to be home?' he asked and the yearning in that voice for some sort of sign that Starsky was remembering was almost too painful to hear.

Starsky reached for his mug of coffee and lifted it to his face, allowing the aromatic steam to fill his senses. There was nothing quite as soothing and welcoming as the smell of fresh coffee and the brunet felt himself relax a little. Eventually he raised his eyes and looked at his friend.

'It feels good to sit down somewhere that doesn't have bugs, or sand, or bars' he said carefully.

'But you don't recognise anything?'

Starsky shook his head. 'Nuthin. I mean this place feels good, like I aught to know it, but it's like walking onto a film set or sumthin. Everythin' feels like it should be mine, but it isn't really mine.'

'Doc Herman says he can help with your memories but we have more pressing stuff to deal with and I need to know what you really think buddy. Are we tight? Are you beginning to realise that I am your friend and that we're cops? Or is this just a front?' Hutch sat back and looked at his partner steadily, waiting for the brunet to consider.

Starsky was taken aback by the directness of the question. It was the first time Hutch had actually asked him about their relationship and there was a note of urgency to his words.

'Why ask now?' Starsky asked.

'Coz we have a situation partner and I need to know whether we do this together, or whether I go solo.'

'What kinda situation?'

Hutch shook his head. 'Uh uh. You first. Are we still partners? Do you remember me? No more dancing around the subject Starsk. 24 hours ago we were both trying to kill each other. We're going to go into something big and I need to know what you're feeling.'

The brunet shrugged his shoulders. 'Like you said. We trust me and you.'

'Me and thee Starsk, and that answer aint good enough. If I'm gonna stare down the barrel of some flakes gun I need to know what the man at my side is gonna do, what he's thnkin'. This is time for honesty buddy, or like I say, you stay here and I go it alone.'

'Honesty huh?' Starsky blew out his breath through his nose. It was a familiar gesture and one that sent shivers down Hutch's back. It felt so strange and so wrong to have Starsky right there in the room with him and yet not have his buddy back in the true sense. He closed his eyes and waited.

Starsky started to talk. 'Truth. Ok, you asked for it. I don't want to kill ya any more. That's the first thing. I have no memories of ya, or this house or any of the guys we met at the metro. I remember the hospital, the doctor there and what he told me and right now I know I'm not Ethan Quade. Thing is I don't remember bein' this Dave Starsky guy either.'

Hutch sighed deeply. 'What're you tellin' me?'

'I'm tellin' you that whoever you are, whatever you really are to me is the real deal. I couldn't kill you on that island even though god knows I tried. But I couldn't because sumthin inside stopped me. I couldn't make the final commitment. It was like there was some kinda safety catch stoppin' me from doin' it. The more I look at you, the more I'm here with ya, or in the car, or listening to ya talk to Dobey, the more I feel a connection. Deep inside I know we meant sumthin to each other, or at least you meant sumthin to me, but as to what it is I have no clue. It hurts like hell and it scares the crap out of me, but I owe you for what you did in that jail cell and whatever this crisis is, I want to….., no, I need to be there. Is that honest enough?'

For a moment Hutch was lost for words. He was used to his partner's incessant chat. He was used to Starsky's quirky humour, the one liners, the jibes and the jokes but he couldn't recall another time when Starsky had opened up his heart to him so completely. It stunned the blond and brought a lump to his throat which he swallowed down quickly. There was no time for sentiment, that would come later after a nights rest and when the flakes who'd taken them had been arrested.

'Yeah, that's honest' the blond said quietly. 'So we do this together?'

'Whatever "this" is, yeah.'

For the next half hour Hutch explained about Joe Durniak's death, Terry Nash, the Casa in the desert and how everyone had now turned up dead and how he and Starsky were the FBI's number one suspects. Throughout it all Starsky sat paying attention. Once or twice he interrupted to ask questions and at the end of the talk he scrubbed his hands down his face.

'So basically we're fucked' he summed up.

'Down but not out' Hutch corrected. 'Tonight we sleep. Dobey is forced to tell the feds we're back, but he's gonna delay for 24 hours. That gives us a 24 hour window to try and get some answers.'

'And if we don't?'

The blond grinned wryly. 'Then we're fucked. Get some rest tonight partner, you're gonna need it. Do you need me to stay?'

Starsky cocked his head on one side. 'Do you usually?'

'It's been known for me to sleep on your couch, but tonight I need my bed.'

'Then go. I'm fine. I just need time and a good look around my new house.'

'Old house Starsk. You've lived here for the past four years.'

Starsky grinned and for the first time the hunour showed in his eyes. 'It's a new house to me right now. Go, an' I'll see you bright and early.'

It was Hutch's turn to smile. 'If you're bright and early partner, I'll know there's something seriously wrong.'


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

It was around 9.00pm and the room was bathed in the soft glow of the lamps when Hutch rose stiffly from the chair in Starsky's living room. The two men had talked and talked about their relationship, their past, their job and their loves. Or rather Hutch talked and Starsky listened which to the blond seemed most unnatural. Usually it was Starsky who talked incessantly while Hutch tried to shut out the noise, but on this occasion, with the brunet sitting listening intently, Hutch felt that progress was being made. Eventually though weariness crept up on the blond and he stretched in his seat.

'I need to go buddy. Are you sure you don't want me to stay?' Hutch asked.

Starsky shook his head. 'You look how I feel. Go home an' get some rest, it sounds like we have a helluva day tomorrow.'

Hutch stopped for a moment. Progress. The "we" in that last statement meant more to the blond than anything else right now and he smiled an easy smile. 'You need sleep too Starsk. You know where I am if you need me.'

Starsky shook his head. 'Right now I don't, but I'm sure I'll still be fine. Go huh? We've talked all night and you've told me all about me, but I don't know a damned thing about you.'

'You will. That's the next chapter. Tomorrow.'

The brunet cocked his head on one side, considering. 'The doc told me that you were a drug runner and I was ex Army. What did they tell you about yourself…..and me?'

Hutch shook his head. 'Lies Starsk. They told me lies.'

'Like?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'It does to me.'

'They told me I was Ray Hunt, but that much you know. They told me I was a firefighter from Seattle.'

'And what did they tell you about me?' Starsky asked quietly.

'That you were the guy who raped my sister and left her to die in childbirth. I believed 'em Starsk. When I believed that you were Quade, I believed that you were a monster, but not now. You're my partner. We're cops and I'd sooner die than hurt you. We watch each others backs, that's what we do best and now I'm walking out that door before I get too sentimental. See you tomorrow bud.'

Starsky half smiled. 'I believe ya. And Hutch? Thanks. See ya tomorrow. Early.'

The door closed and for the first time in a long time, Starsky was alone. Alone with his thoughts and the new/old memories floating around in the otherwise blankness of his mind. So much had happened in the past 24 hours; so much for his brain to process and suddenly he was aware of a pounding in his temples from the headache he never knew he had. Slowly he rubbed at his head and then padded over to collapse onto the couch, elbows resting on his knees.

Hutch was his friend, not his enemy. It made sense because throughout all this, Starsky's mind had never once allowed him to seriously hurt his partner. As for the rest? Hutch had told him that Doc Herman could help, but the last time he'd trusted a doctor, Isaac had betrayed him. Or had he? Maybe Isaac had been fed the same lie that Starsky had. Doctors took an oath didn't they? First do no harm?

Starsky sighed and his eyes lifted to fall on the picture in a silver frame on his coffee table. It showed him and a beautiful woman standing by the side of a huge slide on a fairground. The woman – he knew it was Terri – was looking at him and smiling such a happy smile despite the small white band-aid on her forehead.

The brunet eased himself back until he was comfortable, the picture in his lap as his thumb drew small circles over Terri's face, God that woman must have been so special! Hers was the face he saw time and again in the hospital. Hers was the voice that echoed around his aching head and kept him sane and comforted when he'd felt so alone.

Slowly Starsky's eyes drifted closed and the curly haired man lapsed into sleep.

_The sun shone through the jalousies across the window, sending small shafts of sunlight across the bed. Starsky awoke slowly. He was lying on his back, naked and his left arm was flung outwards, pinned down to the mattress by something warm and heavy. Starsky turned his head against the pillow and smiled contentedly at Terri as she twitched in her sleep. Something in her man's movements made her wake too and lazily Terri stretched, bowing her spine like a cat and turning on her side so that she could place one arm over Starsky's flat stomach._

'_Good morning' she whispered into his chest._

'_Well good morning to you too. Sleep well?' he asked._

'_Like a log. What time is it?'_

_Starsky squinted at the clock and grinned. 'Time enough for more of what we had last night.'_

_Terri giggled, her voice like satin falling against the brunet's skin. 'Can Mr Wiggly manage an encore?'_

'_Mr Wiggly has been in training. You'd be amazed what he can do' the brunet said softly as his hand started to wander over Terri's body, cupping her breasts and playfully nipping at her nipples. She mewed beneath him and raked a furrow with her nails down the skin of the brunet's back so that he hissed and bent to nuzzle her neck._

_With great care, the curly haired lover rolled over until he was above Terri, looking down into her big shining brown eyes. 'I love you' he whispered._

'_I love you too Ethan' she murmured._

_Starsky froze, his face turning ugly. 'Davey. You call me Davey. Who the hell is Ethan?'_

_For a moment Terri's face showed confusion and then she giggled. 'Oops' she said. 'Did I say Ethan? I meant Davey.'_

_Above her, Starsky's face turned angry. 'I asked who the fuck Ethan was?'_

'_No-one. Don't' be angry Davey. Make love to me. You're so much better than him.'_

_Starsky's temper cracked. 'You little whore! You've fucked another guy when you're my girl?'_

'_It was only for one night. You weren't here and……I love you Dave. No-one else.'_

_Lost in his blind rage, Starsky slapped at Terri's face. It was a stinging blow that knocked the woman sideways and the movement inflamed Starsky's temper more. 'You couldn't leave it alone! You want a cock every night, well here's one to be working on.' Without any preliminaries Starsky forced himself inside Terri, feeling himself tear at her entrance as she screamed beneath him, her hands battering at his back._

'_No Dave! Davey don't do this, please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Ethan!'_

_The struggles inflamed Starsky's passion more and he plunged himself into Terri again and again, enjoying her cries for help and breathing in her fear as though it were the finest perfume. His body worked against her, violating her as he'd never done before. When she fell silent, sobbing against him, he slapped her again and again, leaving white finger marks over her delicate skin until her lip split and a wound appeared on her forehead._

'_Ethan…..I'm gonna die if you don't stop this. Ethan please.' Terri's voice was small, struggling for air and her eyes were glazing over from the blows that Starsky had inflicted. As he climaxed inside her body, Starsky looked down into those pained brown eyes and saw only love and trust._

'_I'll always be there Davey' she whispered, right before she died._

Dave Starsky's scream woke him up from his dream, the noise reverberating around the silent apartment. He was still fully dressed and on his couch, the silver framed photograph of his woman still clutched against his chest, the front of his shirt damp with perspiration.

Fuckin' nightmare! Thank god it was a nightmare. He would never hurt Terri and he would never rape any woman.

Would he?

Starsky panted as though he'd run a marathon, his body still quivering from the vividness of the dream and carefully he put the photo down, unable to bring himself to look at the girl he'd treated so brutally, even if it was in a dream. What was wrong with him? Why would he dream such a thing?

Unless.

Was everything Hutch had told him the truth? Or was the blond hiding something from him? The guys that had cared for Hutch/Hunt in that hospital had told Hutch that he, Quade/Starsky was a rapist. Was there something in that? Was that the truth and everything that Hutch had told him a lie?

Starsky put his head in his hands and a single lonely sob escaped his lips. He didn't feel sorry for himself as much as confused, lost, lonely. His memories were gone and those that Hutch had re-seeded in his head were like lies. Could he believe them? Was he really Dave Starsky? Or was he Ethan Quade? And if he was, was he really a bomb disposal guy from the Army, or was he a rapist who really had killed Hutch's sister?

Starsky had nothing to compare himself against. He had no memories of his own and with the darkness in his strange apartment with his mind in such a whirl, he had no idea who to believe any more.

In a last ditch effort to preserve some of his sanity, Starsky reached for the telephone. He needed to talk to someone and the one he would have chosen to speak to was Doctor Isaac. That man had been kindness itself. The doctor had patiently put him back together again, had sat and listened to him, had dealt with his injuries and had even found a way for Starsky to get out of the hospital. He so desperately wanted to speak to the man and yet, as his fingers closed on the receiver of the phone, Starsky realised belatedly that he had no number to contact.

Flinging down the phone, the brunet lurched to his feet and made his way into the kitchen. Too many thoughts in his head. Too much confusion! He needed quiet if only for a few hours until his brain could rest and reset. In the morning he'd feel better, if he could make it through the night. Only alcohol or drugs would do it and almost in desperation Starsky searched his kitchen cabinets for booze. Coming up only with a bottle of Tequila with an inch of liquid left in the bottom, the brunet drained it, got his door keys from the back of the door and headed out into the dark to find the nearest bar.

As the brunet left the house and almost ran down the steps, the occupants of the car opposite sat up a little straighter.

'Wait until he's around the corner and then follow him at a discrete distance. He's on foot, he can't be going that far' Doc Isaac said softly to the other two men in the vehicle.

'Then what?' one of the huge orderlies asked.

Isaac sighed. It was like explaining E=MC squared to a kindergarten child. 'Then we follow him, chose the right moment and take him back to the clinic. I have more work to do on him before we let him go again.'


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

The bar was busy when Starsky walked into it. He had no recollection whether it was a bar he had used before. It was about a half a mile from his house and it was the first place he'd come to. Pushing open the door, the warm fugginess and the smell of beer seemed to welcome him and without making eye contact with any of the other patrons, he pushed his way through the crowd to the bar and found a stool close to a corner where he could sit and lose himself in the alcohol. The barkeep neither questioned him nor greeted him like a long lost friend. He merely poured out the string of five shots of tequila interspersed with three beers without a word before going back to serve his other clients.

Starsky reached for the fifth shot glass and missed. Concentrating hard, he managed to get his hand co-ordinated and tried again, his fingers closing around the slippery surface as he brought it to his lips and downed the fiery liquid in one. It burned the back of his throat and the vapours curled up his nose making him cough and he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. The tequila was having no effect on his mood. The brunet tapped on the bar top.

'Set 'em up. Beer and tequila chaser' he snapped before sliding off the stool and heading for the john, shoulders hunched and head down as though every care in the world were heaped upon his shoulders. Starsky could never remember feeling this way before. Well, Starsky couldn't remember a lot of things and yet the unease and the disquiet in his head felt harder to bear than any cuts or bruises. In a word, the brunet felt as though he were on the edge and the next step would take him plummeting down into craziness and a long stay at the State funny farm. If beer and shots weren't working, maybe the next step was a line of two of coke?

As the curly headed figure disappeared down the corridor to the bathrooms, one of Doc Isaac's heavies leaned on the bar and crooked a finger at the bartender. The man nodded that he'd seen the heavy, finished serving the drunk at the bar and headed over.

'Yeah?'

The hit man handed the barkeep a $5 bill. 'I'll pay for the beer and tequlia and take them over' he said quietly. 'Keep it between the two of us huh?'

The bar tender nodded. He was too used to pickups in his bar and too busy to care about what his patrons wanted to do in the alleyway out back. Without a comment, he took the money and poured the shot and the beer before starting to serve another customer. The hit man took the glasses around the Starsky's seat and as he shielded his movements from stray eyes, he took out a small capsule of powder and emptied it into the tequila, using his forefinger to dissolve the fine grains. With timing a Broadway musical would have been proud of, he melted away into the crowd just as Starsky came back from his visit and sat back down at the bar. Morosely, the cop picked up his beer and sipped at it slowly.

The alcohol was not have the desired effect for Starsky. The dream he'd had; that almost-real nightmare had shaken the brunet to the core. Had he been "normal"; had he been feeling well and he had his memories in tact, then he would surely have been able to shake off the dark thoughts inside his head, but without any past to ground him or give him a point of reference Starsky was left wondering whether he really was a cop, or whether what Doc Isaac had told him was true and right now he was living the lie. The curly haired man slammed his fist down on the bar top, making the glasses jump and jingle and the man sitting next to him shuffle a few inches further away. The pain helped. The pain made his mind sharper and yet it wasn't enough. Starsky could hardly go around slamming his hand against hard objects for the rest of his life just to give him a second of clarity. Knocking back the rest of his beer, Starsky grabbed for his shot and flung his head back letting the powerful drink slide down the back of his throat like molten lava. At the table right across the bar the two heavies grinned at each other now that the fish was well and truly on the line and got up casually making their way across the crowded room towards their target. On the bar stool Starsky felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and he looked around blurrily.

The bar seemed to have become fuzzy around the edges. There were no straight lines in the room any more and the air inside the room seemed to have taken on a misty quality. The voices too had changed. Before there had been a loud hum of general noise but now the sounds seemed somehow sharper and harsher making the brunet want to put his hands over his ears to close out the sounds. Starsky looked at the glass he'd just slammed down onto the bar. Inside, not quite dissolved by the alcohol there was a tiny residue of creamy coloured powder. GammaHydraButirate? Rohipnol? The date rape drugs were in their very infancy and yet Starsky had had experience of them before

Starsky glared around the room looking for the flake who'd spiked his drink and yet at the same time as he was looking for a fight, his legs were turning to rubber and his heart was racing a mile a minute. As he lurched off the bar stool and leaned heavily against the bar Starsky felt strong hands take a hold of his around his upper arms, supporting him from falling. He tried to shrug them off.

'Gerrof me' he slurred looking up into a grim face.

'Shudup and come with us' the grim face hissed at him.

Drug fuddled as he was, Starsky tried to pull away again. 'Back off man' he managed to grind out as he felt himself pulled towards the doorway.

'Hey, what're ya doin'?' the bartender called out. Grim faced man looked up.

'Our friend's had too much to drink. Drowning his sorrows ya know? We're gonna make sure he gets somewhere safe where he can sleep it off.'

The bar tender nodded. He'd seen it all before -some goon with a broken heart and enough money in his pocket to blot out the memories. There was always one in his bar and usually it was he who had to deal with the tears and the aftermath. If someone else was going to save him the task, then so be it. 'Get him outa here…..and maybe a pot of black coffee?'

Grim face nodded. 'Sure thing.' He and his friend took one of Starsky's arms each and propelled the brunet towards the door. Starsky felt himself being dragged and he tried hard to pull away. He knew he shouldn't be going with these men and however much alcohol he had inside him, it didn't stop him from realising that this could only mean trouble and yet try as he might, he could not get his legs to obey his commands. In fact as he was drawn further out of the bar, the cooler air hit him and seemed to activate the drug in his bloodstream. The world took on a sickening sideways quality. Colours blossomed around the edges of Starsky's vision as though he were seeing the world through a rainbow. His breath sounded loud in his ears and he could hardly feel the hands on his arms as though his body were becoming numb. Most worrying of all was the fact that the brunet felt his inhibitions flowing away with each step closer to the waiting black car. He should have been fighting. He should have been yelling for help or trying to reason with his captors and yet the further away from the bar he got; the harder the hold of the drug on his system, the easier it seemed to be to just go along quietly and see what these men wanted.

Finally the entourage reached the waiting car, its engine still ticking over as it stood at the side of the road. As Starsky was pushed against the cool bulk of the metal, a rear door opened and a familiar voice sounded from inside.

'Ethan! Thank God we found you! We've been searching everywhere for you.'

The two goons holding Starsky up pushed him towards the open door and Starsky managed to keep his eyes open long enough to recognise the face of Doctor Isaac sitting inside. He allowed himself to be manhandled onto the back seat where he sat gasping for breath as though he'd run a mile. The door closed and the two goons got into the front seat and prepared to drive off. For one moment of clarity Starsky panicked and his hand reached for the door handle.

'No….gotta….gotta go. Get out…gotta…..'

Doctor Isaac reached for Starsky's arm and pulled him back gently. 'Ethan what's happened to you? You're safe now. You're with me.'

Drunkenly the brunet turned to scowl at the doctor. 'M'not Ethan. M'Sssstarsssky. Cop. I'm a cop.'

Sadly Isaac shook his head. 'Where have you been Ethan? And what have they done to you? Is it Hunt? Has he fed you these lies in order to save himself? We've been so worried about you but you're safe now.'

Starsky slumped against the seat. All his fight had gone. All his newly formed memories seemed to flowing away from him. He'd been prepared to believe that he was Dave Starsky, cop and friend to Ken Hutchinson. He'd been prepared to try to forget his alter ego and now, right when he thought he could see a glimmer of clarity on the horizon, here was Doc Isaac telling him that what he'd been prepared to believe was just another tissue of lies.

Who should he trust? Hutch, the man with the earnest crystal blue eyes? Or this doctor, the man who'd found him in the car wreck and put him back together again? With a strangled sob of forlornness, Starsky closed his eyes and allowed sleep to claim him. Maybe when he awoke things would be clearer. Until then…..

The doctor watched Starsky sleep like a surgeon would watch the monitor during a difficult operation. He sighed deeply, thankful that the first part of his plan at least had gone as he'd hoped. It would have been good to get the earphones back onto his subject as soon as the drug had been introduced into his system but in the car there was no facility for doing that. Now it was a case of getting Starsky back to the clinic and trying to convince the cop that he was once more Ethan Quade in the hope that Mr Da Luca, Mr Lake and himself could finally finish what they'd started.

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

Hutch made his own way home through the evening to his apartment at Venice Place. As he pulled up outside the building and walked quietly and tiredly up the steps to his front door, he reached automatically above the lintel and grabbed the key, jamming it into the lock. The door swung open and the slightly stale smell of weeks old garbage hit him full on. With a grunt, the blond opened the window, filled his watering can with water and plant food and made his way around the various potted plants that were wilting in their pots. The Adiantum capillus-veneris looked particularly sorry for itself and the blond man spent minutes pinching off the dried and shrivelled leaves and talking soothingly to the fern. It calmed him and for a while Hutch lost himself in the small domestic duties, allowing himself to give his full concentration to the plants and blocking out the more worrisome matters of Starsky's health and the small fact that he was about to star in America's Most Wanted.

Gardening over, Hutch poured himself a bourbon and sat down on his sofa, eyes closed as he breathed in the heady aroma of the liquor and allowed his mind to wander. The evening conversation with Starsky had put Hutch's mind at rest somewhat. As soon as the brunet had entered the Metro and had been greeted by people who knew him and who seemed genuinely pleased to see him back, he had started to relax a little. When Hutch had finally pushed Starsky through the door at Ridgeway, the smaller man was ready to talk…..and to listen. The hour long conversation had been both difficult and at the same time rewarding. For the most part Hutch had done all the talking, but Starsky had listened intently, had asked relevant questions and when Hutch had departed, the blond felt that progress had been made and come the morning, Hutch felt sure that Starsky would once again be his curly haired ebullient partner of 6 years.

It had not purely been the anger and the accusation in Starsky's eyes that had hurt Hutch so much back there on the island. The fights they'd had had hurt physically for sure, but what hurt Hutch more than anything else had been the lack of connection between them. He had spent the past six years inextricably tied into Starsky's life and to suddenly have that part of him ripped away was like having his right arm amputated. Hutch had felt at once incomplete and incredibly sad.

Realising he was getting maudlin, Hutch put the glass down on his table, hauled himself out of his seat and headed for the bedroom. Tonight, slobbish as it was, he was too tired even for a shower. Instead, Hutch slipped off his shirt and shorts, eased himself between the sheets of his bed and was asleep before his head touched the pillow.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

The room spun slowly as Starsky opened his eyes and realised he was lying once more on his back on a hospital bed. For a moment he panicked and from experience checked the back of his hands and his arms for any signs of IVs. There were none, which was always a good sign and the brunet relaxed marginally. He recognised the room as being the one he'd made his recovery in before. It felt welcoming and homely, and at the same time just a little bit disconcerting to be back in it so soon. Was he sick? Crazy? Or a combination of the two? Starsky rubbed his eyes and sat up on the bed pausing a moment to allow the room to stop swimming in front of him and then looked down to see that whoever had placed him on the bed had also taken the trouble to clean him up some and give him new dark blue scrub pants to wear. The dirt and dried blood had gone but the bruises in the centre of his body were marching up the flat plain of his belly in a blue/black tide towards the dimple of his navel and as Starsky moved a dull ache restarted in his balls.

Cautiously the brunet got off the bed and walked towards the door his hand outstretched to open it. He was so far past surprises at that moment that it never occurred to him to wonder why his new friend Doctor Isaac had been in the car right after he'd been drugged by two strange men. To Starsky the world was revolving whilst he took no part in it. After so much new information to process he was reduced to the status of a spectator, observing life but sitting out on the fringes whilst others did their things around him. He had a passing thought about where Hutch might be, and then that passed too as the door opened and Isaac walked into the room.

'Good, you're awake, my friend. How are you feeling Ethan? Are you rested? Do you have a hangover? You had quite a skinful last night.'

Starsky's eyes narrowed. 'Heads fine I guess, unlike the rest of me' he replied carefully.

'Good. It's good you have a clear head although I'm concerned about you Ethan.'

'Why?'

Isaac walked towards the bed and patted the mattress, pulled up a chair and sat down. 'Come and sit by me. You still need to rest.'

'I don't' wanna rest. I need answers. I can't live the rest of my life like this. Why am I here? Tell me why you brought me back? Am I sick or sumthin?'

'No…'

'Then I'm confused. Doc don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the bed and for…..well, you put me back together again, But I don't do drugs and your folks are way too ready with 'em. My head is screwed enough. I need answers not another arm full of narcotics.'

'I can understand the need for answers and I'll try to give them to you, but I need you to calm yourself and sit down.'

Starsky turned slowly to gaze at the doctor. 'Why? So that you can drug me up again? I thought you were my friend.'

'I am. I'm your one friend Ethan.'

'Prove it.'

'What do you want me to say? What do you want me to tell you? How can I prove it to you?'

Starsky prowled the perimeter of the room. 'You can start by dropping the "Ethan" routine. My name is Starsky. Dave Starsky.'

'Do you really believe that?' Isaac asked softly. 'Has he gotten to you so fast?'

'Who? Has who gotten to me?'

'Hunt. He's a master of illusion you know. He'll tell you anything, tell you anything to stop you from killing him.'

Starsky stopped prowling and stood glaring at Isaac, 'Hutchinson. He's called Ken Hutchinson. We're partners. We're cops. He told me. He took me to a place. They all knew me. It's you. You're the one who's lying to me' Starsky's voice took on an edge of desperation as his head told him one thing but his body and his gut instincts told him something else.

'His name is Ray Hunt and he knows you want to kill him. He has money Ethan. He has enough money to make almost anything possible, including employing extras like they do in a film to say they know you.'

The brunet whirled on the doctor. 'It was real' he yelled, his hands flung up to his temples as Starsky closed his eyes and shut out the confusing thoughts. He'd been so sure that Hutch had been telling him the truth. For that one hour last night, when he and the blond man had been talking, Starsky had felt truly relaxed, as though he belonged. Now the itchy, antsy feeling was back on his skin and in his head and an explosion of pain started behind his temples and felt as though it were eating itself out from behind his eyes.

Isaac came to his feet and took a hold of Starsky's wrists, pulling the man's hands from his head. He gazed into Starsky's eyes, putting such trust into that one look as he could muster. 'He was lying Ethan.'

'NO! He wouldn't.'

'Yes, he would. He'd stop at nothing to save his own skin.'

'But it was so real' the brunet whispered. 'It was so fuckin' real. I dunno. I dunno what to believe any more. Why would he protect me? He didn't look rich.'

'Why would he go to the island the way he did Ethan? You were forced to swim. He had a luxury yacht waiting for him.'

'He said it belonged to the guy who'd taken him there' Starsky said softly.

'Why would he try to kill you Ethan? Why would he hurt you? I've seen the bruises. I've seen the damage he inflicted. Would a friend really do that?'

'No, that's not right. He helped me. He said you'd brainwashed him into hating me. Into wanting to kill me, like you'd brainwashed me into killing him. He told me he could remember but he…..'

'What Ethan? What?'

Starsky collapsed onto the bed and held his head in his hands. 'He said he didn't know why I couldn't remember. He said he'd help me.'

'How? By beating you? By inflicting those terrible injuries?'

'No!'

'Then how? Has he helped you so far?' Isaac urged, feeling that the door he pushed against was beginning to open.

'He…..no, he hasn't…..well, he took me back to my home.'

'And left you there, yeah. Has he helped you any more? Has he given you medicine? Has he taken you to a doctor?' Has he Ethan?'

'No….yeah……no, I mean I dunno.' Starsky looked up, his eyes cloudy and confused. 'I believed you. I believed him. Now I don't know what to believe any more. I'm goin' crazy aren't I?'

Isaac smiled sadly. 'You're not going crazy Ethan, but you are sick and I'm gonna make sure you get better. After that…..well we'll take one day at a time huh? For now, will you let me give you a sedative? It'll calm you and help you sleep. It may even help some of your memories.'

'No. No more drugs Doc. I don't want nuthin.'

Isaac shook his head. 'Who's the doctor here huh?' he asked gently.

'You.'

'And who knows what's best for you right now?' Isaac asked just like a caring practitioner.

Starsky ducked his head. 'You' he said quietly, his voice defeated and small.

Isaac pulled a syringe from his pocket and removed the plastic cap. Starsky made no further comment as the doctor swabbed a small square on his bare arm and pushed home the needle. Within minutes, the familiar warm fuzziness started to flow through Starsky's body and the brunet rested back against the pillows, his head cradled on his arms as his eyelids slid slowly closed. 'M'not crazy…..not crazy' he whispered into the pillow as sleep claimed him.

Outside the door, Mr Lake paced impatiently until Isaac came out from the room.

'Well?' he asked.

'It could be better, but it's not the sort of situation that's unsalvageable. Give me another 24 hours and he'll be ours again. Within 36 hours I'll have reprogrammed him once more.'

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

The middle of the night is a lonely time for most people. When the darkness hugs around a body like a warm oppressive blanket and the silence is deafening, imagination runs riot and hearts start to beat faster. Midnight is the time when small boys clutch their sheets to their chests and wonder if the monster under the bed will come out and get them. It's the time when little girls wonder if Mr Tumness really will come out of the back of the wardrobe and whether he will be chased by the ice queen. And it was the time that Starsky next awoke, his disquieted mind shaking off the effects of the sleeping drug more quickly than Dr Isaac would have believed.

The brunet opened his eyes and stared up into the darkness until finally he could make out shapes and then shadows and eventually the crack of light under the door to his room. Pain argued with him, giving him a choice between lying still and hoping it would go away, or getting up to see if an obliging nurse would make him a drink. His throat was parched and his stomach growled making Starsky wonder when was the last time that he'd eaten.

Stomach won out against pain in the end and with a low groan, Starsky flung back the sheets and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His feet touched the cold tile of the floor and made him shiver although the room was not cold and the brunet looked around for a tee shirt or shoes. With none readily available, Starsky slipped off the bed and went to the door, opening it a crack to look down the hallway. Something, and he knew not what, made him cautious, as though some part of him did not want to be caught walking the corridor at night.

Still holding onto that feeling, Starsky slipped into the brightly illuminated hallway looking both left and right. It was like no hospital he could ever remember being in, although given the state of his memory that said nothing, but there was none of the usual hustle of bustle of nurses, orderlies and doctors and none of those small ceaseless noises that hospitals at night were full of. Instead there was a deadly silence, giving Starsky the feeling that he was the only one awake in the whole building. The absence of other people added to his feelings of caution and as he walked down the corridor Starsky hugged the wall, walking on the balls of his bare feet to leave as little noise as possible.

The nurses' station was empty, devoid of life and there was not even a light on showing that maybe a nurse was on her way back from the little nurses room and Starsky passed it slowly, ducking his head around the various doors along the hallway. Some of the rooms were empty of everything whilst one, very close to Starsky's had another bed and another set of drawers very like his own. The rest of that floor of the "hospital" was deserted and suddenly Starsky's heart started to hammer in his chest.

Why?

What the hell was going on? Where was everyone? Why was he the only one awake? Why did he seem to be the only patient? The absence of people and the deathly quiet made Starsky's feelings of paranoia worse. That was it! The first stages of madness. He was delusional and before long he would wake up in his bed with Doc Isaac shaking his head and tutting over him.

Curiosity and a sickening fascination drove the brunet on as though he were living a nightmare. He ran from one door to the next, abandoning caution now as each room came up empty, devoid of life or indeed furniture. Lights from the street below illuminated some of the rooms whilst others were as dark and still as the grave. Those were the rooms Starsky closed the door on quickly and by the time he came to the end of the corridor his breath was whistling in his throat and his heart hammering like a jackhammer against his ribs.

The last door on the hallway opened onto a large corner office. This room at least showed signs that it was in use and that its owner had merely stepped out for the night. Starsky stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Whether he was Dave Starsky or Ethan Quade, he had no idea, but some instinct told him he needed to search this room for his answers and some innate ability told him how to do it.

Ignoring the view from the window or the lure of the water machine in the corner, Starsky headed for the leather topped desk set at an angle across the far corner of the room. It was a dark, masculine room, the air redolent with the smell of cigar smoke and aftershave. The deep pile carpet was a deep dark green, the walls wood panelled in glossy wood and the desk heavy and mahogany. As Starsky padded across the floor his toes sunk into the carpet pile and the wool tickled his feet. Air conditioning blew across his naked chest, raising goose bumps over his flesh and he shivered again.

The top of the desk was littered with papers. The owner of the desk was either very untidy or very busy and after looking over his shoulder, Starsky came around the front of the desk and bent over the files, his hands hovering over the papers as his eyes darted over the print. Medical names, drug names, copies of x-rays all scattered across the leather top of the desk as Starsky would have imagined a doctors desk would look and he was about to give up looking when his eyes hit on one word amongst hundreds.

Hutchinson.

The one word was buried in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a paragraph and the rest of the words were hidden beneath a copy of an x-ray of an arm showing what looked like an elbow joint blown clean apart. Starsky's hands scrabbled through the files, more and more words jumping out at him as his eyes flowed over the print.

Starsky……comatose…….Hutchinson…….damage…….subject……..erased.

That final word was the one that Starsky's eyes fastened on and he grabbed the paper his mouth working over the words on the page.

_Subject David Starsky was brought in comatose from the "accident" with his partner Ken Hutchinson. Whilst Starsky is proving an easier subject the other man is more problematic and it will be a challenge to have his memories finally erased._

Pain lanced through Starsky's head like a bolt of lightening and he gasped, clutching at his temples as his spine bowed him over the table, gagging on his own spit and trying hard to breathe through his agony.

_A car – a red car going downhill. Too fast. He couldn't stop it and he tried to steer away from houses and cars. The tree coming up towards him too fast._

'_Hutch jump.'_

'_Over my dead body.'_

'_No, over both our dead bodies if you don't go now. Jump.' _

The memory threatened to overwhelm him and the pain in his head amplified, arcing behind his eyes so that he ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. The world was reduced to the pain in his head and the flashes of memories, the pictures of his life flowing back into his brain like a tidal wave. Starsky groaned, panting heavily as in one huge rush his life and his identity returned to him, blotting out the office and the incriminating file……and also the noise from the hallway.

The door to the office opened slowly, the wedge of light from the corridor getting larger as Starsky forced himself to look up.

'You always were going to be a difficult man to convince Ethan. Or should we revert to Starsky? It's a shame we came this far and now we can go no further. It's the end of the road, so to speak.'


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

Dr Isaac stood framed in the doorway of the office, backlit by the illumination from the hallway like some demonic presence. He regarded the panting brunet with sadness and some anger and as he walked into the room, Starsky saw the small, compact, but still deadly Firestar pistol in the doctor's right hand.

'Step away from the desk, there's a good man' Isaac said in a reasonable voice.

Slowly Starsky straightened, his hands coming up and out to his sides showing he was unarmed and not about to make a stupid move. His eyes fixed on Isaac's. 'Why?' he asked.

'Why what?'

'Why do all this? Why go to so much trouble? You could've just left us in the wreckage of the car. You want me and Hutch dead right? So why all the fancy shit?'

Isaac nodded. 'I see your memories have returned. Shame. You were a promising subject.'

'I'm glad to oblige, but it don't answer the question. Why?'

Isaac's gun remained trained on Starsky's head as the doctor walked into the room and closed the door behind him. 'We needed you and Hutchinson out of the way and we needed to achieve that without anyone wondering if there was foul play involved.'

Starsky snickered. 'Foul play huh? What do you call brainwashing two cops?'

'I call that creative. What could be more subtle that having one partner kill the other and not remember why they did it? That way the powers that be wouldn't suspect. Maybe David Starsky had gone mad with grief over the death of his beloved Joe Durniak and had turned on his best friend? Maybe there was some other reason that Hutchinson had killed you. In the long run we would have had two dead cops and an unsolved mystery. I believe it's called a cold case in cop speak?'

'Very neat.'

'Yes it was, and it was going well for a while, until Hutchinson proved to have too strong a mind. Despite the full treatment he still retained some seed of his memory, although in fighting the drug and the treatments we did get an awe inspiring glimpse of his darker side. It was disappointing because it was going so well with you.'

'What made me different?' Starsky asked, his natural competitiveness resurfacing even now.

'You were more badly damaged, but it was your past rather than anything else that made you a better subject.'

'Define past.'

'Your little stay with the Viet Cong to be precise. Whatever you think Starsky, that experience will scar you for the rest of your life. Once they've maltreated a prisoner as they did with you, that man will never be the same again. Let's face it Davey, your mind will always be that little bit weaker than Hutchinson's and that's what I'm relying on.'

Starsky stared back down the barrel of the gun defiantly. 'You can't make me do shit. I'm back. I remember everything, including all the crap you fed me about being some hot shot Army guy. So I was stupid enough to get captured back then. It cost me four of my men and a year of my life in some fuckin' Army hospital. That don't make me weaker. If anything I'm stronger now than I ever was.'

'No Davey, you're not and I'm going to prove it to you.'

'Like hell you are' Starsky said beginning to move away from the desk. A gunshot sounded in the confines of the office, loud despite the silencer on the end of the weapon. A bright light flashed from the muzzle of the gun and the smell of cordite lay heavy in the air as Starsky let out a muffled grunt and cradled his bleeding left forearm against his body.

'That was just a warning. It's merely a flesh wound but it lets you know I'm serious. Now, I want you to step away from the desk and walk slowly towards me. Any sudden moves or any attempt to stop me will result in another hole in another portion of your anatomy. There are plenty of other places I can shoot you that will hurt but won't kill.' Isaac flicked the gun to the side indicating Starsky to move.

Starsky's body trembled. The shock of the shot and the immediate pain of the wound was an assault too far on his senses. His hands shook and his legs turned to rubber and yet the brunet refused to give Isaac the satisfaction of seeing just how hurt he was. Reluctantly the brunet obeyed. The wound on his arm bled freely leaving ruby droplets dripping from the tips of his fingers to cascade across the carpet. There was a crazed look in Isaac's eyes leaving Starsky in no doubt that the doctor would shoot him again given the opportunity. He would just have to do as he was told and bide his time. Maybe by then Hutch would show up. But then again, maybe not.

'You should get me some gauze' Starsky remarked calmly.

'Why?'

'Coz right now I'm bleeding all over your soft furnishings and when Hutch gets here it's gonna lead him straight to me.'

Isaac snorted. 'You're so sure he'll come?'

'Oh hell yeah, he'll come.'

'Good, that's what I'm bargaining on. And the trail of blood is just what I need to get him into the right place at the right time. Continue bleeding my friend. I know I can always trust you to be helpful. Walk ahead of me through the door and take a left. No sudden moves, I have a lot of bullets left.'

Feeling dizzy and sick Starsky walked softly past the doctor, his eyes never leaving the gun. As he got to the door he looked back to see Isaac with the gun still trained unwaveringly on him.

'It won't work' he said. 'You already said Hutch is stronger then me.'

'I also said you had the weaker mind. That's what I'm counting on. Keep walking to the end of the hallway and take the steps up to the fifth floor. Oh, and what do they say in the TV shows? Keep your hands where I can see them.'

Starsky lifted both arms out to the side of his body. The left arm hurt like hell and the pain sickened him but at the same time seemed to bring the world into sharper focus. Slowly he followed the doctor's instructions, walking carefully down the corridor in the hope that someone might see him or some nurse might make it back to work early. By the time he'd got to the stairwell however, he'd passed no-one and the idea of climbing further up the building filled the brunet with dread.

'Why not just shoot me now?' Starsky tried again, talking over his shoulder at Isaac.

The doctor sighed. 'You still don't get it do you? My boss always said cops were thick as pig shit and I never believed him. I mean, you solve the occasional crime for goodness sake, don't you? There must be some brainpower there and yet you still don't get it.'

'Explain it to me' Starsky asked, playing for time.

'Keep walking. Up the steps to the next floor then take a right. We don't want to be incriminated. Mr Da Luca has invested a lot in his business, both in money and effort. It's not cheap to convert a place in the desert and it's not easy to find a while bunch of men and women who have no backgrounds and no families. But Mr De Luca managed it and it is my job to make sure that they follow his instructions to the letter. They kill for us. They do the dirty work and they never remember why. That way Mr Da Luca is free to continue the family business without having to trouble the criminal justice system.'

'He has it all worked out don't he?' Starsky said bitterly.

'Oh yes. Mr Da Luca is the best businessman I know.'

'And now what?' the brunet asked as he stood in the hallway of the fifth floor.

'And now we ensure his business is still safe. Open the door on your left please and go in.'

Starsky reached for the door handle but didn't turn it. Another shot rang out, kicking up pieces of floor right next to the brunet's right foot.

'Don't fuck with me Davey. You're getting tiresome. Open the door and go in or I'll take the foot off with the next shot.'

With a sigh, Starsky opened the door to a small room decorated entirely in white. The walls and ceiling where white as was the tile on the floor. In the harsh illumination of the fluorescent strip lights, the place was blinding and it took a moment for Starsky to focus on the single black chair in the middle of the room. It loomed like a malevolent beast in the middle of the floor, its bulk heavy and bolted to the floor. No bigger than an average dining room chair, it seemed to be constructed of metal. It had a high back although it was narrower than a man's shoulders and the top of the back came higher than a man's head once he was sitting tall. There were skeletal arms to the chair and the arms, back and legs were all decorated with heavy black leather straps. The sight made Starsky swallow hard and memories of his time in Vietnam rose up like a tide. Now of all the times, he would have preferred to have had a blank memory!

'Sit down Davey. We're wasting precious time here' Isaac said, flicking the gun at the chair.

'I'll stand if that's ok' Starsky retorted. The pain in his arm made his temper short. Come hell or high water Isaac was going to kill him. The doctor seemed intent on killing Hutch too but if Starsky could make Isaac mad enough, maybe the doctor would lose his cool and take Starsky out immediately. Not that the brunet wanted to die, but if he could save Hutch's life……

'I said sit down' Isaac's voice rose and became harsher.

Starsky turned and lowered his arms. The left had developed such a shimmy anyways that he had little control over it. The right hand came to lie by his side and Starsky eyeballed the doctor. 'What if I said I didn't want to? What if my weak little mind told me to stand here for eternity huh? Would that ruin your plan Doc? You might kill me but you're gonna have to go over my dead body to get to Hutch.'

'I asked you once nicely Starsky. Sit down in the chair before I lose my patience.'

'Or what?'

Isaac sighed. 'Or I will make you.'

Starsky grinned defiantly. 'Prove it.'

Another shot rang out and this time Starsky couldn't subdue the scream. He clutched at his right thigh as the blood started to flow from the hole towards the outer quarter of the muscle. The brunet collapsed to the floor, balling himself around as he tried to deal with the pain. He panted heavily, the breath hissing through his teeth as he looked up at the doctor. 'Nice try' he grunted, his right hand covering the newer bloody wound.

'Get on the chair Starsky. On the chair right now. I know what you're trying to do and I won't play your game. You don't die till Hutch gets here and I have plenty of time to keep filling you with holes. Now sit on the fuckin' chair or we go for the other leg next.'

Despite wanting to protect Hutch, Starsky's body was not fit enough to endure too much punishment. The brunet's resolve was as strong as ever but his body was not ready for the punishment. Reluctantly he looked at the chair and tried to stand. His right leg refused to move and he grunted at the pain.

'Can't stand' he whispered.

'Then crawl' Isaac hissed.

Gritting his teeth, Starsky managed to haul his ass over to the chair. The metal was cold and unforgiving against his flesh and as he collapsed into it Isaac followed him over, the gun trained on the brunet the whole time.

'Put your left arm on the arm rest and buckle it down' the doctor commanded. 'And make it tight, I'll be checking.'

Starsky did as he was told, the leather strap biting into the flesh of his wrist. He glared back at the doctor once the task was complete.

'Now place your right arm on the arm rest' Isaac continued and when Starsky obeyed, the doctor tightened that strap too. The rest was easy and within minutes Starsky was strapped into the chair, his ankles, wrists and head immobilised so that he was forced to stare at the white wall opposite. His heart hammered in his chest as Isaac came around the front of the chair to look at his prisoner.

'I have a phone call to make. Don't go away' Isaac said mirthlessly. The doctor walked out of the room leaving Starsky alone with his thoughts and his pain. Half of the brunet wanted Hutch to come and save him. The other half wanted the blond man to stay away. Whatever Isaac was going to do next, however, Starsky was now no more than a puppet in the game.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

The wee small hours of the morning are times when reactions are slow. A man sleeps approximately 8 hours and is awake 16. During the wakeful hours, mental and physical functions are most active and tissue cell growth increases. During sleep, voluntary muscle activities nearly disappear and there is a decrease in metabolic rate, respiration, heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. The activity of the digestive system increases during the resting period, but that of the urinary system decreases. Hormones secreted by the body, such as the stimulant epinephrine (adrenaline), are released in maximal amounts about two hours before awakening so that the body is prepared for activity. Before that time, the body is at its deepest part of its sleep cycle. Wakefulness from this time of night is usually slow. Co-ordination is compromised, thought processes protracted.

The telephone rang at least a half a dozen times before Ken Hutchinson recognised the sound and forced his eyes to open at the same time as reaching out his right hand for the telephone. He missed, sending the instrument to the floor and Hutch slurred a curse as he coaxed his stiff and sore body into life. He grabbed for the receiver.

'Lo.'

There was a moment's silence at the other end of the telephone – a silence just long enough for Hutch to get his thoughts together and begin to feel the chill of anxiety creep up his spine.

'Hullo. Starsk? Is that you?'

'Nice try Hutchinson. Starsky is close by but he isn't able to come to the phone right now.'

Hutch sat more upright on the edge of the bed. The voice sounded familiar somehow although in his sleep fuddled state Hutch couldn't place it right then. 'Who is this?' he asked sharply.

'I'm saddened that you don't remember me.'

'Too bad. Gimme a name or I hang up.'

The voice sighed down the line. 'Would you really do that? Would Ray Hunt really pass up the opportunity to get to Ethan Quade?'

'You got the wrong guy' Hutch growled, although the tone of the voice left the blond man on edge.

'I don't think so Ray…..or do I call you Ken? Or maybe Hutch?'

Hutch clutched the telephone harder. 'Ok, you have my attention.'

'I thought that might get to you. That's why I want you to put down the phone, go to the door and get into the car that's waiting for you. No phone calls en route, understood?'

'No, explain it to me.'

'You still don't recognise my voice? Even after all those late night talks we had, especially when your fever was up.'

Something clicked. 'Isaac' Hutch snapped. 'What the hell do you want?'

'You. I want you. I already have Starsky and I need a matching set.'

'You're lying. Starsky's right here with me' Hutch lied, trying to gain some time.

'Oh come on! Even you can do better than that Ken. Starsky stayed at his place – 2000 Ridgeway -for about three hours after you left him. Seemed he couldn't sleep so he took himself off to a bar. It's amazing what a little GHB mixed in with his drink will do. He seemed almost pleased to be back here. He was definitely glad to see me again – for a while at least.'

'What does that mean?' Hutch snarled.

'It means he's gonna bleed some more unless you do exactly as I say.'

'If you've hurt him…..'

'Oh for fuck's sake save me the bleeding heart routine. I know you're both close. Or you were. If you get here quickly, maybe you'll be able to save his memories, before I erase them once and for all. After that, he'll do whatever I tell him.'

'He's too important to you. You've spent too much time on him. You wouldn't hurt him' Hutch tried desperately.

At the other end of the phone Isaac snorted. 'Are you willing to bet on that? Would you really play so fast and loose with his life?'

A cold chill worked its way up Hutch's spine. 'What do you want me to do?' he asked quietly.

'I want you to get into the car that's waiting outside. No pauses to make phone calls, no leaving any notes. There's a timer on this Hutch. Waste too much time and Starsky dies, it's as simple as that.' The telephone went dead leaving the blond stunned. It took a moment to shake the cop from his horror but eventually Hutch regained the use of his legs and he got shakily to his feet and stood by the window. Standing to one side of the glass, carefully he moved his drapes to one side so that he could see down into the street below. Drawn up just behind his old brown LTD and the car he'd borrowed from the BCPD to get home, a shiny black Caddy was waiting, headlights illuminating the street and engine running.

'Fuck!' Hutch whispered the curse into the dark. Quickly he looked around. He'd been ordered to make no phone calls or leave notes and he was sure that Isaac would have some way to check up on him. He could delay a little, but not enough to do anything useful save get dressed. Hutch threw on a crumpled pair of jeans and a sweater. He opened the cupboard behind his front door to get his gun. His holster came up empty and belatedly he remembered that he had been carrying the gun on his way to Durniak's funeral. It had not been replaced and he had no time to try to find an alternative, especially as Starsky's life was at stake. With a fatalistic grunt, the blond closed his front door behind him, walked down the steps to the street and got into the back of the car to sit between two large and very evidently armed men. The driver said nothing but moved the car off and out into the night.

The drive out to the suburbs was accomplished in silence. Hutch didn't want to talk and the two heavies didn't look the chatty types. The blond's head was in a whirl. Isaac had Starsky once more in his clutches. Ordinarily Hutch knew his partner would be able to look after himself for a while at least, but this was not ordinarily. Since meeting up with Starsky again on that island, the brunet had been nothing but antagonistic towards Hutch. It was only the previous evening that things looked to be changing. On his journey home from Ridgeway Hutch had felt that progress had been made and that Starsky was, if not remembering, then at least open to the possibility that Hutch was telling him the truth and that they were friends and partners. Now, god only knew what lies Isaac was feeding the brunet once more and the thought sickened Hutch to his stomach – that, and the knowledge that with the lies would probably come more attempts to end his, and Starsky's lives. Without his gun Hutch felt vulnerable, incomplete and yet he knew that even if he'd had the weapon with him it would have been taken from him as soon as he got near to the car. Calming himself by breathing deep and regular, Hutch sat between the two huge bodies and waited, mentally preparing himself for that lay ahead.

The blond didn't need to wait too much longer. After maybe 20 minutes of driving the car finally drew up outside a brand new office block, the tall concrete and glass structure still resplendent with its "office space for sale" sign outside. On the fourth floor of the building lights shone through one or two of the windows and as Hutch was shepherded out of the car, he looked up.

'Inside' one of the heavies grunted, waving a deadly black pistol in Hutch's direction. Hutch nodded and walked slowly into the building with the two men at his back. He walked quietly, conserving his energy for the time when he might have a chance to use it, but as the trio walked through the deserted foyer and towards the elevator cars, there seemed little hope. The elevator doors opened with a quiet hiss of air and the high speed car carried them up to the fifth floor. By now the two men accompanying Hutch were beginning to treat the whole thing casually. Their charge seemed docile in the extreme and Dr Isaac's words of caution seemed almost redundant. Man#1 leaned idly against the wall of the elevator car holding his gun loosely in his hand while Man#2 picked at a small piece of skin by his thumb. They had been employed as orderlies in the "hospital" only days ago. Their change of role was unwelcome to say the least.

Hutch watched them both from the corner of his eye, playing the defeated cop to the hilt. He stood with his eyes downcast, his shoulders rounded. He even managed to shake a little as the car came to a halt and the doors opened again onto a bare concrete floored corridor. Man#1 pushed Hutch's shoulder and the blond stumbled out into the hallway. He was getting the measure of the two heavies now. Neither seemed professional. A competent hit man would never take his eyes off of his target, no matter how docile he seemed. A true professional would remain vigilant at all times and yet these two seemed more bored than alert. Maybe it was a front, but it was all the blond had to work with. Hutch kept up his pretence as he was herded down the narrow hallway towards a room at the end. Very slowly, he slowed his pace again until he could almost feel Man#1's breath on the back of his neck. Biding his time, Hutch allowed Man#2 to walk in front of him to open the door to the room and as he stepped through it, suddenly the blond exploded into action.

With Man#1 still close behind him, Hutch put all his weight on his front leg, kicking out as hard as he could with his back leg in a passable roundhouse kick so that it caught his follower high up on his groin. The man had little chance to escape the kick as his carelessness had given him no room for manoeuvre. Hutch's foot sank into the soft vulnerable flesh and there was a satisfying grunt of pain as the man went to the ground clutching at the centre of his body. As Man#2 whirled around to see what had cause the noise, Hutch came catapulting through the door, slamming it in Man #1's face and catching Man#2 unawares.

The big man was muscle bound and strong but his reactions were slow. There was a look of surprise on his face as the blond grappled with the flake, reaching for the gun in his right hand. A shout of shock sounded in the background but Hutch was too intent on fighting with his captor to take much notice of the voice. For an age he seemed to be face to face with the other man, their noses almost touching as the silent battle of strength raged over possession of the gun. Sweat broke out on Hutch's face and his arm started to shake and yet he would not give up. A grin of premature triumph broke out on Man#2's face as he felt himself gaining the upper hand but it was short lived.

A grunt of pain came from the centre of the room and Hutch had a passing impression of a chair and a familiar figure tied to it. He recognised Starsky's curly head and the sight filled the blond with renewed vigour. Slowly he looked his assailant in the eyes as his hand clutched harder at the gun between them. There was a questioning look on Man#2's face now as he felt the weapon start to move against his body. Both hands shook on the gun but its muzzle was moving, repositioning. Hutch and the heavy locked eyes for one last instant before the sound of the gun firing deafened everyone in the room. There was a blast of heat down the front of Hutch's body and a burning sensation across his chest and then the man in front of him seemed to melt towards the floor, collapsing dead at Hutch's feet.

The blond whirled back towards the chair, the hard fought over gun now levelled at Dr Isaac who stood behind the chair, his hand around Starsky's throat. The brunet's eyes were open and focussed on Hutch in an unwavering gaze.

'Starsk?' Hutch asked breathlessly.

'Maybe you should call him Quade. You'd get more of a response' Isaac snapped.

'What've you done to him?' Hutch asked quietly.

'He's had some more treatment and now he feels like a new man. Put the gun down Hunt. Put it down and we can talk.'

'I don't think so' Hutch grunted.

'I could force you to change your mind.' Isaac reached into his pocket with his free hand and brought out a syringe. With his teeth he took off the plastic cap and held the needle to Starsky's throat above the pulsing jugular. 'Drop the gun' the doctor repeated.

Hutch ignored the doctor and looked at Starsky, his eyes seeking out his partners. There was no arguing the fact that the brunet looked dazed and yet there was something there, in those indigo blue eyes that had been absent for such a long time.

'Starsk?'

The brunet swallowed and the tip of the needle punctured the olive toned skin so that a ruby red pearl of blood blossomed and started to wend its way down Starsky's neck.

'Starsky, are you ok?' Hutch asked again.

'Terrific' Starsky mumbled although his voice was thin and rasping.

The gun in Hutch's hand was getting heavier. A man can only hold a firing stance for so long before his aim starts to waver. Whatever was going to happen had to happen fast. Isaac stood behind and slightly to one side of Starsky, the thin back of the chair rising in a line up between Starsky's shoulders to where his head was bound by the single black leather strap. There was no clear shot for Hutch to take and yet he needed to do something and fast.

'Starsk, I need to know. Do we still trust me and you?'

Slowly Starsky blinked and a small smile played over his lips. 'Me 'n' thee' he rasped as Hutch took his aim and fired at Isaac, through his partner's shoulder.

The doctor let out a scream of pain and the shot spun him away from Starsky's bound body. Immediately Hutch moved forwards, covering the doctor with his gun whilst checking on the brunet. Starsky remained upright in the chair, held immobile by the bindings but his eyes were closed and his breath was shallow and fast.

As Hutch came to kneel by the side of the injured brunet, Isaac let out a howl of rage and flung himself bodily at the blond. Hutch balanced on one knee, brought the gun up again and fired in one single fluid motion. This time Isaac's body spun away to fall against the chair. He sagged back onto the floor, let out one deep sigh and the final breath left his body as Hutch turned back to his partner. Gingerly he placed his fingers against the Carotid artery on Starsky's neck feeling for the pulse. It was there, strong and regular and as he watched, the brunet's eyes fluttered open.

'Starsk, speak to me. Are you ok?'

Starsky looked down into Hutch's eyes. ''M t'riffic. You shot me!' he muttered huskily before unconsciousness took him.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

Starsky prowled the small hospital room like a caged panther – albeit a panther with a heavy limp and a bandaged arm and chest. He wanted out and he wanted out now and for the hundredth time he looked out of the window down to the parking lot for signs of Hutch's LTD.

It was 8 days since he'd been brought into memorial suffering from three gunshot wounds. Two, those in his forearm and thigh had been cause by Dr Isaac. The third, the one that sliced open a red, bloody trail across the ridge of his shoulder was the legacy of the shot Hutch had taken to get to Isaac. All three wounds were healing well, but after the previous month of incarceration in Isaac's hospital, Starsky was more than glad to be going home.

That night, 8 days ago, Hutch had carefully untied Starsky from the chair and had carried the brunet from that white room. He had fussed over Starsky until the curly haired cop had showed signs of regaining consciousness and then had finally left his buddy to go to the mock nurses' station and call for an ambulance, a coroners wagon and Dobey, in that order. The ambulance arrived first and was loading the brunet into the back when Dobey's car arrived in a blaze of lights and cacophony of sirens. It had taken the blond cop a long time to try to explain to his Captain what had happened. Shock had set in and Hutch shook uncontrollably so that eventually the ambulance technician took control of the situation, threw a blanket around Hutch's shoulders and installed him in the ambulance too.

Captain Dobey stood at the door of the vehicle and looked at his two men. Starsky was once more awake, hooked up to drips and monitors and whilst Hutch was being treated, the black man looked at the blood soaked, curly haired cop.

'Can you tell me what happened?' he asked Starsky.

'Hutch shot me, that's what happened.'

'You mean…..' Dobey leaned in to keep his voice from carrying over to Hutch. 'You mean he's still not right?' Dobey hissed, touching the side of his head with his finger.

Starsky grinned weakly. 'He's fine. I'm fine. We're good Cap'n. We both remember who we are. Hutch just shot me, that's all.'

'It was all I could think of to do to save his life' Hutch mumbled through chattering teeth.

'You mean you meant to shoot him?'

Hutch nodded. 'Course. He told me to.'

'You did?' Dobey asked Starsky.

'Kinda, yeah.'

'And you tell me you're both fine?'

'Absolutely.'

The Captain took a step back shaking his head and looking from one man to the other. So long as he lived there would always be times when he just didn't get it. This was one of those times. He closed the ambulance doors still shaking his head and watched as the big white vehicle set off to the hospital. Only in the days that followed did the Captain get the full story from Hutch and later Starsky and when Hutch filed his full report and the coroner had finished with Dr Isaac's body the case was finally closed.

Three days later, whilst Starsky was dozing on his bed and Hutch was sat at his side poring over a crossword puzzle, there was a knock on the door. The blond looked up, expecting to see Huggy or Dobey. His smile turned to a frown when the two FBI agents walked into the room and came to stand at the foot of the bed. Gently Hutch prodded his partner awake. Starsky opened one eye and regarded the two suits balefully.

'Well if it aint Laurel and Hardy' he mumbled and shuffled up higher in the bed.

'Detective Starsky, we're um…..we're glad to see you feeling better.'

'Yeah, I just bet you are.'

'What do you want?' Hutch asked, throwing his crossword puzzle down on the bed.

'Is that any way to greet the men who're here to revoke the warrants for your arrest Detective?'

'Fine, you've revoked 'em. They should never have been issued in the first place' Hutch snapped.

'Your actions amd Detective Starsky's connections……'

Starsky cocked an eyebrow. 'My connections to what, or who?' he asked.

'Why to Joseph Durniak of course. With your background……'

Starsky flung the sheets on his bed back and was half way out of it, wrestling with the drip needle in his arm before Hutch managed to restrain him. The two men leaned heavily on the table bearing the remains of the brunet's lunch. 'If I had two workin' arms I'd show you what my "connections" mean' Starsky snarled.

The agent smiled. 'Now see that's the Starsky we've come to know and love. The one that loses it at the drop of a hat. We'll be leaving now gentlemen. The case involving Durniak is now closed.

Starsky shrugged Hutchs arm away.

'What do you mean closed? Hey….c'mere.'

The two suits stopped at the door. 'It's closed. Once again your luck has saved your career.'

The angry brunet looked around him. With one arm strapped to his chest for support and with his leg still strapped heavily he could do nothing more strenuous than pick up his half eaten bow of Jell-o and throw it at the door. The desert spattered harmlessly against the wall but the sentiment was heartfelt. The suits left swiftly and Hutch snorted softly.

'Wow! Great aim Starsk. Next time try somethin' really hard, like a pillow. That'll show 'em.'

But Starsky was gazing sorrowfully at the mess on the paintwork. 'Damn' he said quietly. 'What a waste. It was Strawberry, my favourite.'

+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+

Hutch pulled into the parking lot at 3.00pm much to Starsky's relief. He'd had pain meds, a promise of steroid injections into his shoulder and a paper sack containing antibiotics and more pain meds. He stood at the door to the room and drummed his fingers on the door as Hutch walked along the corridor with a small case containing his clothes. Within 5 minutes he was dressed and had hijacked the nearest nurse for a wheelchair.

At the door to the hospital, Starsky got up, kissed the nurse on the cheek and followed his partner to the waiting car.

'Took you long enough' he grumped as Hutch pulled out into the traffic.

'I had to finish the reports and since I had no help….'

'I can't type. My hands all bandaged up' Starsky waved the bandage triumphantly.

'What about the other hand?' Hutch snapped. Paperwork was not his favourite pastime and he'd had enough of it in the past week to last a lifetime.

'Uh uh. The Doc said bedrest.'

'You can type in bed.'

'Not with your hands full of pretty nurse you can't. What did Dobey say?'

Hutch sighed. 'He said no.'

Starsky sat up straighter in his seat. 'No? He can't refuse. He said no last time and look what happened.'

'According to the powers that be Terry Nash is dead, and now Isaac is dead too. You know there are bigger fish behind this and I know there are too, but the FBI in their infinite wisdom have once again closed the case.'

Starsky's fist slapped into the window of the car and he grimaced. 'What about the guys working with Isaac? He didn't do this all on his own. There were others behind this. They're the ones we need to get to. This isn't over.'

'You said that last time Starsk. I agreed with you then and I still do, but Dobey won't hear of us taking them on and the Feds say they don't exist.'

'So once again we chalk it up to experience huh?'

Hutch shrugged. 'I guess that's about the size of it, yeah.'

'I don't believe it. I can't just forget. It doesn't work like that. I mean….I just……oh my God!'

Hutch slammed on the brakes. 'What? Are you ok? What?'

Starsky looked over his shoulder back up the road. 'Oh my God Hutch! Did you see that?'

'What? Someone you recognise?'

'No.'

'Then what?'

'That girl, with the ass and the long legs and….'

Hutch's foot hit the gas so hard that Starsky was flung back into his seat. 'Starsky, so help me if you ever look at a girl's ass again….. It's dangerous, with a capital D. If you remember the last time Dave Starsky drooled over a girl's ass he woke up as Ethan Quade.'

Starsky grinned and settled back into his seat. 'Yeah, true but what's life if ya can't live dangerously and have a whole lot of fun huh?'

'There's fun and then there's…. Starsk, there's another one there. Are they all linin' up just to taunt us?'

Starsky leaned his head back against the headrest. 'They're just here to celebrate the fact that we're back.'

'We?'

'Yeah. Starsky and Hutch. *We're back, we're bad, you're blond an' I'm mad. Me and Thee, Who else?'

* * *

*With apologies to Lethal weapon!


End file.
